TED VS ROSS

Friends and How I Met Your Mother are two series that share a ton of similarities. Friends premiered in September of 1994 and HIMYM premiered in September 2005. I grew up watching Friends and I only just started watching HIMYM in my early 20’s. I’ve watched each series numerous times, maybe too much. Two characters who are awfully alike are Ted and Ross. Both live in NYC and have the most unique yet monotonous careers. Ross is a paleontologist and Ted is an architect and they both work as professors at local colleges. They tend to let their friends have too much say in their personal lives and can never seem to move forward with other relationships, because of their close relationship with their ex. Their friends are constantly meddling with their lives and refuse to take them seriously at times. These two characters are painfully awkward and run themselves into some of the worse situations. They both are 100% committed to finding love and are the most pathetic hopeless romantics I’ve ever known. They are both known to throw around the “L” word way to fast. Watching these two characters make poor decisions over and over becomes exhausting after a while. Is it possible one of these poor saps is worse than the other?

As hopelessly and motivated they are to find everlasting love, there is one thing that is

constantly hindering it from happening; their exes. It’s not unheard of to remain friends with your ex and still be able to move on, but their friends make this near impossible to do. Not only do their exes have so much to do with this, but their friends never cease to keep their opinions to themselves. Lilly is constantly playing “God” in Ted’s life. She will go to no ends to break Ted up with someone she doesn’t seem fit. They will hold “interventions” when they feel one of their friends are going off the deep end. Ross’ friends thoroughly enjoy poking fun on his choice in women. Maybe they do have his best interest at heart, like the one time Ross was dating one of his students, which could ultimately interfere with his career. Don’t get me wrong, my husband is 12 years older than me so I would most times support this. Also I believe Ted has done this as well. However in Ted’s case, he is so influenced by his friends opinions that he adapts these standards and in the end, can’t get passed these new found flaws. Maybe it’s more of an unhealthy codependence. Not only does Robin remain friends with Ted, she moves in with him at one point. I personally know what its like to live with an ex, and its nothing less of awkward.

In one episode, Ted steals this blue French horn from the wall of a restaurant, just to impress Robin after she mentioned wanting one for her place. I mean brownie points for actually listening but could you imagine? You can never show your face in that

restaurant again, and imagine stealing an artifact from Applebee’s? First of all why was it so easy to just take this horn? Shouldn’t it have been secured to the wall better? Not to mention the horn was probably so dirty between all the grease and dust accumulating in the restaurant. All I know is I wouldn’t want that thing in my home. He couldn’t think of a less illegal way of proving himself to Robin?

In my opinion I truly believe Teds deepest darkest secret is that he is in love with Lilly, his best friend’s wife. For just about 20 years he believed that he made out with Lilly that time in college and that she was meant to find Ted in that dorm room, instead of Marshall. He’s always been jealous of what Marshall and Lilly have, which may be the reason he is so desperate to find someone. Maybe this is just a taboo thought that is a common amongst close friends of the opposite sex, but he does do a great job of

keeping it to himself. That is till he starts seeing the crazy hot girl whose name cannot be recalled, and who uncovers the truth about that night. Even after Marshall corrects him, you can tell by his facial expressions that he doesn’t want to believe it, till he actually meets that girl he made out with at their college reunion.

Ted makes robin get rid of her dogs. Now honestly 5 big dogs have no business living in

a small apartment in NYC. However asking someone to choose you over their pets, is a dick move. Not to mention the reason was ridiculous. Robin’s ex’s gifted them to her and that’s all Ted could think about. How insecure do you have to be to ask someone to get rid of their pets? You could argue that Robin does the same thing to Ted, but getting rid of an inanimate object is different from getting rid of a living thing.

Ross was married three times. Now we all know how this happened and in my opinion the first marriage wasn’t fair. His first wife switched teams, while she was pregnant with

their child. This could be the major source of his insecurities and trust issues, so you have to feel for the guy. Then there was Emily. Emily is made out to be the bad guy after Ross said the wrong name at their wedding ceremony, but that was the source of her insecurities. Emily didn’t have to move to a whole new country and begin a new life here in the states with Ross but she almost did, so why was her asking him to do the same so harsh? Why was Ross’ job more important? I mean I’ve been on Indeed everyday for the past 5 years or so and not once have I ever seen an ad for Paleontologist, so maybe that’s why. Then there was that drunken night with Rachel in Vegas. Ross was supposed to get an annulment but he didn’t want 3 failed marriages under his belt. He thought he could make it work but without Rachel finding out? I mean this makes sense if they both thought they end up together anyways so maybe it’s not as bizarre as it sounds but still pretty irresponsible.

I think Ross is more boring than Ted at times. I feel Ted can be more pretentious than boring. Ross is also unaware of this. There are times where he attempts to share some work things like speeches and ideas but his friends aren’t the least bit interested, that is

until he meets Charlie. In one episode, Ross is adamant about getting to his award ceremony on time and no one is even concerned if they make it or not. His sister is more

concerned with her ex calling her back, and Rachel is more concerned over what she’s going to wear. No one even cared how much this event meant to Ross. There was that time Rachel was injured and Ross was to be on TV that day for work. Granted Rachel didn’t know about the special but Rachel just expected Ross to be available for her, and Ross secretly canceled the special just to be there for Rachel.

Ross has a tendency to overreact about everything. Like the time he got a horrible spray tan, when he finds out Chandler and Monica are together and sees them through the

window of his new apartment, when he finds out condoms aren’t 100% effective, when his shampoo explodes all over everything in his travel bag, and also when someone eats his sandwich at work. Hmm, maybe all this rage stems from the inability to live his life without the constant criticism and influence from his friends.

Despite how frustrating and lost these characters can be at times, you can’t help but sympathize with them. Ted spent all this time looking for the perfect person to live out his life with, then find that person, then have that person die of unavoidable circumstances. He actually found someone who shares some pretty unusual similarities, like wearing driving gloves. The universe was always working against him and that’s just not fair. Ross couldn’t cope with 3 failed marriages hanging over his head and he was determined to have just one of them work out. He fell in love with his first wife and then conceived their son, not long before she left him for a woman. Everything he wanted, and then it was taken away from him.

What does this say about the type of person I am to want to compare these two unfortunate people? I can’t seem to fight the urge to stay on track and stick to the goal. At times I can relate to Ted because often times I find myself going out of my way for people who wouldn’t do the same for me. He is constantly doing the most irrational and spur of the moment things to attract a potential partner. His choice in partners are also

questionable, like Karen. Karen was probably the most pretentious “Karen” to ever live, and she never had Ted’s best interest in mind. Ted is picky in ways yet chooses to ignore some of the biggest flaws in these girls. This man is literally insane, he makes the same bad decisions over and over again without damaging his hope or learning from them. He has also had extremely eye opening relationships like Victoria who straight out told him the reason none of his relationships work out is because of his close remaining friendship with Robin, but did he learn from that? No.

Ross is just a giant goof ball and although I believe every child born is a blessing, he conceived two children with two different women accidentally. Now this may be because he was unaware of the chances condoms could be ineffective, but you might also say it was totally irresponsible of him. Ted was careful in that way at least, and didn’t have kids till he met his future wife. Ross can be irrational at times and has a tendency to overreact over minuscule things. At least Ted would most likely be open to having a conversation about it first. I guess what I’m saying is I think Ross takes the winning as worst character. His on again off again relationship with Rachel is annoying and he makes very poor decisions, you know like that time he was on a break? Honestly, I have to take his side in that argument because really, what is the actual reason someone asks for a break? In my experience, it’s always because they want to test the waters with someone else or romanticize the idea of breaking up, so you have to know this is a possibility when you ask for “a break”. So congratulations Ross Geller, you take the win for worst character. Poor guy.