Chandler Bing

In the iconic TV series Friends, where six best friends navigate their twenty-something lives in New York City’s Greenwich Village, Chandler Bing serves as the jokester of the group. Chandler, the college friend of Ross Geller and Joey Tribbiani’s roommate, constantly makes fun of his friends, coming up with one clever quip after another. While Chandler is the most financially successful of the group, his use of humor is a safety mechanism that stems from a traumatic childhood. One Thanksgiving when he was 9 years old, Chandler’s father revealed that he was running off with the pool boy to Las Vegas, leaving Chandler and his overly sexual mother to live on their own. Even as an adult, Chandler continues to feel the impact of his parents’ choices and while he is professionally the most successful of the group, his personal life is a different matter. He readily admits to using humor as a defense mechanism to avoid talking about his feelings. Chandler consistently goes back to his bad relationship with Janice, an ex-girlfriend, even though he cannot stand her. He remains unsuccessful with women until he and Monica, Ross’s sister, start dating.

 

Ever since Friends became available on Netflix, I have been working my way through the series. It is fun going through the different storylines: Joey’s struggle to find a consistent acting job, Chandler’s dysfunctional love life, Phoebe’s scattered and strange life, Monica’s extremely neurotic behavior, and the saga that is Ross and Rachel. Yet because I have worked so hard on my self-actualization and awareness over my collegiate years, I had an interesting revelation as I watched the show. I began to see a bit of Chandler in me. While I never had the traumatic childhood Chandler had, we share some of the same tendencies. I use humor and jokes as a defense mechanism and to relieve tension in the room, especially in an uncomfortable situation. I also had a toxic quasi-relationship with a girl in high school that was never good for me. Much like Chandler, all of that changed when I met a girl named Ally in the summer of 2012 and we have been dating since the beginning of 2013.

 

In this specific episode (“The One with Phoebe’s Birthday Dinner”), Chandler and Monica get in a big argument over Chandler’s smoking habit. Instead of admitting his mistake, he turns on Monica and makes the situation worse by making jokes about her. When she brings up his lack of self-control, he brings up the fact that he has seen videos of her as a child “eating Ding Dongs without taking the tinfoil off.” Monica struggled with her weight in high school and often binged on junk food. She has since lost most of the weight. When Monica tells Chandler to stop smoking and to stop joking around, he pulls out a cigarette and lights it up right in front of her. The fight affects them so much that they cannot even try and conceive a child, even though it is Monica’s last day of ovulation. Even at Phoebe’s birthday dinner which they were rudely late to, their fighting continues with name-calling. Chandler refers to Monica as a “manipulative shrew”. This constant childish behavior is what strikes me when I watch Chandler. While I am definitely not as his level of immaturity, I believe that I have demonstrated some of those characteristics in the past.

 

After realizing I share some behavioral characteristics with Chandler Bing, I was initially worried. Chandler is successful as far as finances go, but his personal life is not far from a train wreck. He never gets in a serious relationship because he cannot handle the responsibility. In fact, he believes that he and Monica should break up because they had their first fight. As far as finances go, I am in a very good position. I have a good paying job and no debt of any kind. However, I have trouble expressing my emotions, much like Chandler. After watching several seasons of Friends, I was afraid that I could turn out to be Chandler one day, a fate I do not want. And, yet, though the observation itself made me uncomfortable, having the observation, for me, was a telling indication of my growth over the four years that I have been at UNC-Charlotte. A few years ago, before I made the commitment to be aware of myself and began that practice, I would never have noticed the similarities between Chandler and myself. Fortunately, because of this process of self-actualization, I could see these similarities. Lately, I have been trying to distance myself from Chandler. I want to use humor as a defense mechanism less and less. While this does not mean I will completely stop joking with my friends because that is part of the nature of our friendship, I do want to more readily express how I feel in situations that I find uncomfortable instead of making a joke or using humor to move on and change the subject. This will be especially helpful in my relationship with Ally because I will be able to express my feelings instead of distancing myself from the situation.