More than 22 years after it aired, I finally sat down and watched my first episode of the beloved sitcom "Friends." Yes, the rock I live under is quite cozy. I’m embarrassed to say how quickly I finished the series. It was as equally impressive as it was profoundly sad. I cannot tell you the exact number of days, but I will say it fell somewhere between the 4-5 week range. That’s 10 seasons, 236 episodes, in about 30 days. To prove I actually can do schoolwork, here’s how that breaks down. Assuming it took me 30 days to get through all ten seasons:
I would have watched 7.86 episodes a day. I would have finished a season about every 3 days. At around 22 minutes a piece, I spent 173 minutes a day (or 2.88 hrs) watching Friends. That equates to just over 20 hours a week. So in the 10 years it took people to find out if Ross & Rachel ended up together, I did it in just over .01% of that time.
Yeesh. Now I really wish I hadn’t done the math. Don’t look at me, stop. I feel your judgement. I tried to find a way to justify all of this (ie. it’s for my major, it’s a quality show, it was Interterm), but the truth is I can’t. I told these numbers to a friend of mine and the look I was met with was a mix of pure shock and amazement (not in a good way) and I flipped myself over her couch. Just head first. Over her couch. Ashamed.
To prevent you from doing the same, here’s a list of all the things I could have done. Each of these items I could do in the same amount of time (20 hours) each and every week:
- Run three marathons
- Play seven professional baseball games
- Cook about five turkeys
- Travel a third of the way to the Moon on an Apollo mission
- Work a part time job
- Watch all the extended cuts of The Lord of the Rings (and still have over 5 hours left)
- Get CPR certified over six times
- Take the bar exam almost seven times
- Fail the bar exam almost seven times
- Read "Tuesdays with Morrie" ten times
If any of these options sound more appealing to you than binge-watching, please do it. Save yourself from flipping over a couch in shame. If you want to keep binge-watching, then binge on! I may join your ranks again someday. Just don’t do the math in the end, nothing good can come from it. Me? Binge-watching and I are on a break (smirk emoji). Since giving it up, I have read almost three books, made some money, and have become less pale*. I understand so much more of the Internet now because I watched Friends, but I’m glad to step away for awhile. There’s real friends to see. And 5 turkeys to cook.
*That’s a lie. I’m British and Scot-Irish, I’m always very white.
