“Friends”

As I was on my way to a certain channel the other day, I paused for about three minutes on the sitcom called “Friends.” As a point of interest this is a program, when it first aired that was not deemed suitable for younger viewers so it was shown in the 7:30 to 8:00 o’clock time slot. Now, of course, reruns of the same program with the same material is shown at 4:00pm, just as kids are getting home from school. Anyhow, in the scene that I saw, one of the characters walks into some sort of a bar and announces that she is celebrating an anniversary. Her “friends” begin to guess what the anniversary is regarding:
“Your first kiss?”
“Your first date?”
“Your first sex.”
To which she replies, “Yes.”
Cue the canned laughter.

I know, it’s just mindless trash, but it is such sad, sad and pathetic trash. People like that, women and men who behave like that are absolutely lost, clueless, morally and spiritually adrift, selfish and self-centred, absolutely unable to distinguish between life giving and life destroying behaviours. I know because I work with them on a daily basis.

Children who are raised by people like that also become incapable of distinguishing between life giving and life destroying behaviours.
Yet this, is what we are supposed to laugh about.

If there is any behaviour that is geared to getting and transmitting STD’s including HIV (like our world needs that) it’s first date, first kiss, first sex.
Yet this, is what we’re supposed to laugh about.

If there is any behaviour that requires a person to put on extra layers of insensitivity (like our world needs that), it’s first date, first kiss, first sex.
Yet this, is what we’re supposed to laugh about.

If there is any behaviour that leads one to become immune to giving and receiving genuine love (like our world needs that), it’s first date, first kiss, first sex.
Yet this is what we’re supposed to laugh about.

If there are any characters that our children admire and desire to imitate, if there are any 'heroes' who will virtually guarantee that our children will in turn fail to find caring, loving relationships (like our world needs that), it is those “stars” who in their real lives demonstrate a profound inability to connect in a meaningful way. Because of this our children suffer, our families suffer, our communities suffer, our world suffers.

Yet this is what we’re supposed to laugh about.

When it comes to relationships, healthy people attract healthy people and dysfunctional people attract dysfunctional people. Through picturing them as cute and humorous these type of shows actually promote the most dysfunctional people, life-styles and relationships that our society has to offer. The sad and deteriorating state of the world shows that our children are absorbing the message.

Yet this is what we’re supposed to laugh about.