ASSIGNMENT TWO

Background/Introduction:

Over the past half a century, the understanding of the “Americanized” family or relationship

has changed drastically. 50 years ago, even 15 years ago, the “ideal” family was a mom and a

dad with two kids. But over the past couple years, this image of the perfect family has been

under construction. One part is the never ending media coverage of same sex marriage, which is

challenged by the show with Ross’s ex-wife being lesbian. Also, previously it was taboo to have

sex outside of marriage, but this show shows that it was becoming a new way of life. There are

many occurrences in the show where one of the characters wakes up from a regret from the

previous night or something that they don’t even remember. This happens in one episode when

Rachel and Ross are dating and they “take a break” and Ross gets really upset because he thinks

that they are over, and a girl at a bar seduces him. He ends up doing some things with her that he

will regret, because it gets him in some major trouble with Rachel later on. People began having

friends with benefits and one night stands, which was never really a topic of discussion until the

more modern view of relationships appeared, which is much more open.

What would be better than having a holiday meal with a few of your best friends and family?

It would be amazing to be able to help each other cook and watch the football games that are on

TV and being able to cheer on your team. Then, deciding that you should all go out to the park

and play your own game while the food finishes cooking. You go out and play for a few hours,

switching the teams and trying to make the game as evenly split as possible while other

bystanders watching as each one of you tries to impress the them and each other. But, you get

hungry and decide to go eat while two lone people stay at the part and pounce on the football to

try and get the winning touchdown. Sibling rivalries, even as adults, can definitely get

interesting. That situation sounds strangely similar to an episode of one of my favorite shows,

“Friends”.

“Friends” was a sitcom series airing from 1994-2004 about a group of six friends living in

Manhattan, NYC together, going through daily life and through the ups and downs that it brings.

The show is well known for its attractive cast, hilarious dialogue, and also for its challenging

approach to the basic 1990’s romantic relationship idea. The characters consist of: Ross, the

geeky paleontologist and professor who has had many divorces, Chandler, the funny one that is

good at math and works basically as an accountant, Joey, is the aspiring actor who is a great

friend to all and is great with the ladies, Monica, sister to Ross and a chef bouncing from

restaurant to restaurant hoping to have her own one day, Rachel, the coffee shop waitress and

aspiring fashion industry worker, and last but not least, Phoebe, the free-spirit masseuse and

musician who had a very rough childhood and adolescence.

As the show progresses, the audience begins to see the character of each cast member and

their very in-depth attitude come forth. The group does everything together from living together,

eating meals together, holidays, birthdays, parties, owning pets, anything you can think of, the

characters participate in it together, just like a family. I watched three full length episodes of the

show from Season Two to observe the cast’s every move as if I was there with them on the set,

filming the show. I began to learn about and also felt the need to research this very open-minded

and newly formed outlook on relationships that was not well-respected in the early 2000’s and

prior and how it challenged the previous understanding of a healthy and ideal relationship.

Previously, an ideal relationship was normally a straight married couple with two kids, now it

seems the whole idea of that is being challenged by gay marriage, sex outside of marriage,

divorces, etc.

Literature Review:

I began to research the topic of relationships to learn more about them and be able to

compare the “Friends” idea of relationships and how it challenged the general “healthy

relationship” idea of the early 2000’s and before that. I broke my information down into four

main different categories to learn from and they were: information on why relationships work,

break-ups and struggles, aspects of love and relationships, and then information straight from my

observations of the show itself such as gay marriage and how it relates to my other sources.

Relationships can work out and flourish for many different reasons such as being friends (no

pun intended) before the relationship, mutual likes and dislikes, or being opposites that attract.

But, success in a relationship is much deeper than just that. Many things to into them such as the

relationship with your parents as an adolescent, certain manners to uphold for them to start up

well, and certain criteria that determines romantic relationships. An understandable and well-

rounded relationship with your parents can cause for better relationships later in life. A study was

done with “3000 middle school and high school students and the kids were followed until their

30’s to see if their relationships with their parents as a child had an effect on their romantic

relationships later in life”(Singh, 2014, “Shots” on NPR). The conclusion of the study was that it

was an aspect of that and also if the relationship with the parents was not good, that it could

cause issues romantically later. If the parent to child relationship was full of compromise and

understanding, then that is how many of the romantic encounters went as well. This also goes a

long with manners in a kindling romantic relationship. You are taught manners as a child, but

some that you use in the dating world have to be self-learned. Generally, the first few dates (if

you weren’t friend’s before-hand) are trying to figure out the other person to see if the two are

compatible. So, a lot of times the hard part is a certain person coming on too strong. It will

normally scare the other person away because they are not ready for something like that. Another

is to share the responsibility of paying for meals. “If a person invites someone to dinner, the

inviter should pay for the dinner” (Martin, 2014). It should not be based on the income or even

more well-known “men should pay for every meal”. Which leads to the reasons a certain person

is attracted to another. In a study done by Grand Valley State University, they concluded that the

two most influential things for initial attraction is a person’s physical traits and their

career/achievements in life. A lot of people try to say that physical traits are not important and

that personality is all that matters, but this study contradicts that outlook.

With relationships, comes break-ups. Some people experience more of these heartbreaks than

others do. Those people will tell you, that it never gets easier. “No one ever wants to have to

break up with someone, but sometimes some things just have to end” (Patchett, 2014). This idea

is explained in an article on National Public Radio (NPR) written by Ann Patchett. She says that

“in bad relationships, even if you feel like you’re too old or have been with someone too long,

sometimes you just have to leave that situation” (Patchett, 2014). The book she wrote called

“This is a story of a Happy Marriage” is written with her personal experiences with the issue

being married at 24, then just one short year later at 25, being divorced. She talks about the

struggles, but also why it was a good thing and how she will (and how others should) treat

serious relationships differently in the future. But, on another NPR radio article, studies have

been that are saying many more people are choosing to marry later in life, if at all. Now, a record

low of “51% of people are married and only 20% of 18-29 year olds are married compared to

60% of that age group just 50 years ago”(Ludden, 2011, The Morning Edition). Along with those

lines, the study shows that more upper class people are being married than people in the working

class. This may be because many people think that all marriages end in divorce and they don’t

want to be already divorced in their 20’s like Ann Patchett. Because as we all know, break-ups

are not a fun thing to go through. There’s crying, missing the other person, wondering what

happened, and sometimes even being mad and potentially thinking that they aren’t good enough.

But, there is science to potentially help with the grieving process. In a study done by Grace

Larson, talking about a past relationship and answering the really tough questions, can actually

speed up the process of getting over a relationship. Being able to talk with a friend, especially

one experienced in break-ups or one that recently has become single as well, can help the

emotions of the entire turmoil. But, there are certain aspects of relationships as a whole that

could speed up or cause this occurrence to never take place. A big reason that relationships are

lost is because of a distraction. Distractions cause many relationships to unfold and they can be

anything from other people, work, difference in opinion and hobbies, or the

smartphone/computer. Technology now a-days is one of the biggest issues detracting from a

couple’s time together, it could be intimate time, dinner, and especially time in bed when you

should be having a conversation with one another. An idea researched by Alison Bruzek in a

study on NPR found that the two biggest distractions for couples is number one, the computer

and number two, the smart phone. She says, that “if you really want to perk up and add some

electricity to your relationship, then put away the technology and see what wonders it does”

(Bruzek,2014).

There are many different aspects of relationships that may add or detract from the

relationship as a whole and a few of these conditions are the ideas of love, partner effects, and

the idea one or both partners may have of a strictly “friends with benefits” relationship. Love is

something that is always talked about and is sometimes misunderstood. Emotions go hand in

hand with love, and our emotional signals from the brain trigger reactions the entire body,

therefore changing our feelings so that we can deal with a certain situation. In a study done by

“Shots” on NPR, they found out that “love warms and enacts almost our entire body” (Douclef,

2013). It can make you so happy that nothing can bring you down and feeling like you’re

floating on a cloud. These emotions, feelings, and attitudes can add to the idea of “partner

effects” (Kenney and Cook, 1999). Partner effects is the idea that one partner can be effected by

the behavior and feelings of the other and vice versa. This means that if one partner doesn’t like

what the other does or seems to be distant for some reason, the other may find something they

don’t like and also become slightly distant as well. On the other side of the spectrum, if one

partner is very into something, the other will start to become okay with it or even like it even if

they were not in favor of it before. One thing that is a tough subject and is one thing that many

people may not agree to in relationships is the idea of being only “friends with benefits”. Friends

with benefits is the idea of having a relationship with someone (generally a friend prior) that

there are no emotions at all, just a physical connection and nothing beyond that. This is a very

controversial form of relationship in today’s society. Many say that it won’t stay only physical,

others say you won’t be friends afterwards, and many people are against the idea in its entirety.

The majority of the show “Friends” is about romantic relationships and who is going to get

married and who isn’t going to get married at all. From my observations, the show has all aspects

from my other sources in it. The main struggle is to be able to make relationships work and to

find the right person. Part of it is the idea of a “gay” relationship (Ross’s ex-wife) and the

struggles that come with it and some people not being okay with it either. “Friends” is probably

one of the first shows to show this outlook and show that it is not a horrible thing and also that a

gay couple can raise a child just as well as straight parents. Some of the reasons that it may not

work, is the relationship the characters had with their parents, if they had a bad relationship with

their parents, it might be part of the cause that they can’t find common ground with their

significant others either. Sometimes, there are manners that you should follow when trying to

kindle a new relationship with someone. Certain things, like in the show, proposing to someone

after not seeing them for over a year, or being too stubborn or cheap to either want to pay or not

want to pay for a restaurant meal. Sometimes, there has to be a compromise reached and it must

be in the back of your mind not to try and move too fast through the relationship because it may

scare someone off, which is the opposite of the idea of the first few dates. Throughout the show,

there is a plethora of break-ups and relationships anywhere from Ross’s three divorces, Joey

dating a new girl almost weekly, Chandler and Janice, and also Monica and Richard. Even

through the process of breaking-up, sometimes it needs to happen and being able to talk about it

with people can help through the whole process. What the group of friends does is they sit down

together with a big tub of ice cream and they eat their pain away. A lot of times in Friends they

have one night stands and friends with benefits and it almost never works out for very long.

Normally, they break up soon after or they don’t even continue to have a relationship afterwards.

But, when people fall in love it has an effect on the whole body where you feel extremely happy.

But to get to the point of love, you have to know manners in relationships and how not to go too

fast and for the couple to split the paying of the meals and whoever is the inviter should be the

one to pay for the meals.

Entering the Conversation:

In America, along with a lot of the world, the idea of a perfect or ideal relationship and

marriage is now changing. Gay marriage is a large discussion topic in mainstream news almost

daily especially over the last few years with the legalization of gay marriage, gay rights, and

LGBT equality and so on. Now, there are many TV shows besides “Friends” that advertise for

the gay community and make it a more known issue in society. This has been a problem because

it is challenging the generalized understanding of relationships because now gay marriage is

being celebrated instead of being frowned upon and illegal. This is one of the issues of

relationships that occurs in “Friends”. Through the shows assertion of this and other styles and

aspects of relationships, it challenged the previous understanding of what a relationship is

supposed to look like and entail.

Shows such as “Modern Family” and movies such as “Friends with Benefits” and “No

Strings Attached” are expanding on this idea of the newly changing relationship. We want for

people to be treated equal and it is becoming a more accepted opinion to think this way. Many

people use the coined phrase “it’s complicated” in our modern world to tell us that this idea is

changing from the past where there was no such thing as complicated, it was basically either

dating or not. We encourage people to be themselves and generally, do as they please as long as

it’s not hurting anyone else or themselves. Does this mean that the idea of the idea of a healthy

and ideal relationship is going down the drain? Is it harder for our generation to know what

relationships were like in the generations before ours? No, we are just becoming more open

minded to differences in dating opinions and how we go about them.

This change from the generalized understanding of a hearty 1950’s relationship to a typical

relationship in 2015 is telling us is that we are more open to other people’s views and actions

than in past years. Instead of judging people and writing them off, we are beginning to accept

these people’s views and being ecstatic that they are happy. But, it hasn’t been an easy battle for

these people wanting equality for all. This summer, the Supreme Court had to decide to either

legalize or keep the illegality of gay marriage. They decided to make it legal, but the vote was 5-

4, a very close margin that could have caused an uproar in the country (Diamond and de Vogue,

2015). This shows that many people still disagree with this change, but also many people are

very much okay with it. Although some may disagree with these certain aspects, it shows that we

allow people to have their own opinions and decide for their own how they went to treat certain

things (i.e. relationships). So far I have been learning about the difference in opinion of a healthy

relationship between the different generations, and I will now create a study to understand this

concept more.

I would first visit a few different public areas on maybe a Friday night or Saturday so there

are many people of different ages to interview about healthy relationships and to make sure there

is no bias. First, I would make categories for four different age groups, one, 13-27 years old, two,

28-42, three, 43-57 years old, and last but not least, 58 and up. Then, of these four age groups, I

would randomly select 100 people from each group (50 men and 50 women) to ask a set of

interview questions based on relationships from their generation’s adolescence and early

adulthood (16-25 years old). I would have a questionnaire of ten or so questions to get an

interesting understanding of that generation’s idea of relationships.

The questions would be as followed after I found out the person’s age about the typical

relationship in their generation: What was/is the most common form of communication? What

was/is the idea of a fun weekend together? What were/are the views on gay couples and

marriage? What were/are the views of friends with benefits or sex out of dating or wedlock?

What was/is considered romantic? How often would/do you go on dates with the other person?

What manners or etiquette was/is expected of the opposite gender? What was/is the image of a

healthy relationship? What was/is the most common reasons for relationships to end? Lastly,

how do you think relationships have changed since then? Then, after all of my questions have

been answered by the groups and people that I needed, I would analyze the data to try and

understand if and how relationships have changed in the last half a century for a better

understanding of the concept. To analyze the data, I would see and rate the different responses of

the different age groups. I would do this in order to actually understand if the idea of

relationships is different from the perspective of an older person compared to a younger person.

Then, after the study was completed, I would hope to find that the older people do in fact have

different outlook on relationships than the newer generations. If this occurred, would in turn,

prove my data and research is true that there is a different outlook on relationships in today’s

generation than in the previous ones.

Conclusion/So what?

The popular TV show “Friends” opened the country up to a new idea of the modern

relationships through its interesting take on gay marriage, friends with benefits, sex out of

marriage, and manners in a relationship. This shows that the concept of the “ideal” or “healthy”

relationship has changed in recent years.

So, I created a study to try and go more in-depth on this idea. I made a set of interview

questions for four different age groups to see what their generation’s views on relationships

really were. After collecting the data, I would analyze it and try and see what has changed in the

dating scene and how modern day’s views of relationships are similar and/or different. This is

important because no one has done a study on this topic or had this urgency to figure out the

differences of opinion in the different generations. There is plenty of knowledge to learn from

after this topic of interest and study has been completed. We could learn more about history, and

be able to influence a better idea of healthy relationships. Many people nowadays have marriage

issues because people cheat or stop being able to put up with one another, maybe if we had incite

to past marriages and how they succeeded, we could put that to use to help our future marriages.

Also, if we find out that generally past relationships people were happier, we could figure out

why and how to go back to those types of relationships. Talking to people from previous

generations, there are a few different reasons that marriages generally lasted longer in the older

crowd than of the up in coming ones. The first reason is that they had an undefined no-divorce

policy. When couples got in fights, they talked about it and fixed the issue. There wasn’t months

of unhappiness leading to one or the other cheating just because they weren’t happy. Another

reason is that sex is more of a big deal in today’s society. Back then, sex was normally saved for

serious relationships and marriage. Now, sex is thrown around like it isn’t even important, which

is a major issue within relationships today. Lastly, smart phones and social media is such an

available option. It is much easier to be distracted by other people when there is social media like

“Tinder” and all of these other dating apps. That is something that was definitely not an option in

past generations where all they really had was the telephone and letters.

What are we doing different from our parents and grandparents? What are the most

common issues of today’s adolescent relationship? How can we influence upcoming generations

to have better, longer lasting marriages and healthier relationships? These are all questions that

many people would like to know the answer to, before they have to experience another or even

their first upsetting break-up or heartbreak.

Works Sited Page

1. Bennett, Adam. (2015) Assignment One

2. Bruzek, Alison. (2014) want to perk up your love life? Put away the Smart Phone. [Radio Series Episode] The Morning Edition. National Public Radio http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/12/03/368213774/don-t-let-technoference-ruin-your-love-life

3. Davis, Princess Braxton. (2010) the social Psychology of love and attraction. Volume 14 Issue 1. Grand Valley State University.http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1235&context=mcnair

4. Doucleff, Michaleen. (2013) Mapping Emotions on the Body: Love makes us Warm All Over. “Shots” Health News from NPR. National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/12/30/258313116/mapping-emotions-on-the-body-love-makes-us-warm-all-over

5. Hughes, Morrison, and Asada. (2005) Friends with Benefits [Document] we are friends, let’s have sex! Yolasite.com. Google Scholar. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=friends+with+benefits&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C34&as_sdtp=

6. Kenney, David A. and Cook, William. (1999) Personal Relationships. Volume 6 Issue 4. Online Library. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6811.1999.tb00202.x/pdf

7. Ludden, Jennifer. (2011) When it comes to Marriage, Many more say ‘I don’t’ [Radio Series Edition] The Morning Edition. National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/2011/12/14/143660764/when-it-comes-to-marriage-many-more-say-i-dont

8. Martin, Michel. (2013) Valentine’s Advice: Love and Manners [Radio Series Episode] Tell Me More. National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/2013/02/11/171704910/valentines-advice-love-manners

9. Patchett, Ann. (2014) Patchett: In Bad relationships ‘There comes a day when you gotta go’ [Radio Author Interview]. In Fresh Air. This is the story of a happy marriage. National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/2014/01/23/265228054/patchett-in-bad-relationships-there-comes-a-day-when-you-gotta-go

10. Singh, Maanvi. (2014) Young and in Love? Thank mom and dad, at least a little. “Shots” Health News from NPR. National Public Radio. http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/02/07/273169987/young-and-in-love-thank-mom-and-dad-at-least-a-little

11. Vogue and Diamond. (2015) Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Same-Sex Marriage. CNN Politics. CNN http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/26/politics/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage-ruling/index.html