Dear Matthew,
Or maybe I should say Chandler, because that’s what I know you as, that’s what I have always known you as. The boy who unknowingly, unwittingly became the idol of my generation. The boy who became the example of the green flags of the new gen. I hope in spite of what you were going through in your life, you knew that. I would like to believe deep down that you must have known.
I discovered you as a wee adult, all of 22. I had just joined my university as a postgraduate student. I was a sheltered girl, hailing from a protective family, always just a bit awkward, a bit geeky, not aware of social filters, but had a load of courage to fumble her way through difficult situations. At 22, these attributes in my head were destined to make me a social pariah. Then I discovered you. You, who was hopeless and awkward and in desperate need of love, made fun of the only people you could remotely call family and they still stayed with you in the corner. You came from a troubled background, you knew you had flaws; you swallowed feelings and used humour to express your insecurities. And, could you be any more perfect? One episode and I was hooked, admittedly as much by Rachel (she was and is my aspirational goal) as you. F*R*I*E*N*D*S made me feel less alone, suddenly I was no longer a shiny-eyed novice, I felt part of a culture, I belonged to a generation that watched F*R*I*E*N*D*S and talked about it. It was okay to be nerdy if you hid it in your sarcasm well. It was okay to be self-deprecating, okay to be desperate and if people were your friends, they wouldn’t judge you for it.
Then I grew up a little, and my shiny eyes lost some of their shine, as the realities of life intervened. People told me my standards were high, that hiding behind the sense of humour was frowned upon and my sarcasm was labelled as stubbornness or embarrassing. I was told in no uncertain terms that I couldn’t be that difficult if I really wanted to find my lobster. But you taught me to wait, that if I was high maintenance, there would eventually be someone who would like to maintain me. That there was a man somewhere who would survive my sarcasm and jokes. I did, and as I watched you effortlessly manage your life with Monica, I realised I somewhere grew to trust your stability, more than your humour. My heart broke for you when Dr Connally called with devastating news about your infertility, how you handled that situation without a trace of humour, showed me how much you’ve grown. The fact that I could do the same for my husband when we faced a similar situation made me realise how innocuously I’ve been drawing parallels between the sitcom and my life.
A classmate once told me I reminded them of Rachel (Yes, I was obsessed), but in my 30s all I wanted was to be you. Chandler Bing. A friend who loved his friend so much that he’d keep a room specifically for them, who’d be willing to do anything to make his partner laugh.
The more I saw of you, the more I liked the man behind you, I realised it was not only Chandler but you Matthew who brought about a vulnerability in the characters. Be it Alex and his confusion or Oz and his conviction, there was something honest about their portrayal. Life continued to happen, somewhere F*R*I*E*N*D*S became a series that I used to watch in my twenties. It was fun and laughter but now there were things to be done, jobs to be worked on, child(ren) to be raised and you all stayed locked up in a set of DVDs that occasionally were dusted. Then came a time when OTT brought the series back into our drawing rooms. The precious Gen Z had good things to say about it, in this cancel culture it passed with flying colours.
I had heard about your struggle with addiction, about how you spent most years of your life fighting with drugs and alcohol, but I never realised the depth of it until I saw you on TV for the F*R*I*E*N*D*S reunion. My heart broke for you as I uncovered the years that you spent fighting. I won’t even try to say that I know how it felt, because honestly, I don’t but if I could tell you one thing, it would be—I loved that you never gave up. You took something that was soul-destroying and fought it till it left you alone, till you could turn it into a lesson, a legacy that you could help pass on. You understood the debilitating loneliness that addiction brings and you gave people the courage to ask for help regarding their disease.
I saw in an interview where you said, you wanted to be remembered “as a person who lived well and loved well, was a seeker and his paramount thing was that he wants to help people”. You wanted F*R*I*E*N*D*S to be remembered behind other things that you did to help. But don’t you see? F*R*I*E*N*D*S helped; it helped shape a generation of boys who were sensitive, or geeks who were accepted, of green flags that women sought, of friends who went beyond. You helped raise a generation who in case of a doubt has always learned to ask, ‘What would Mattman* do?’
Mattman, I miss you; I hope you can look down while having a cuppa with Gunther and see the change you created.
Love,
Heartbroken Fan
* Pun on Matthew’s love for Batman
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