I love Friends, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I was never the obsessive fan who makes up my own trivia games or hosts a bulletin board, but I truly enjoyed watching the show. I'm not weeping that it's over, but I'm glad they made this season.

Why do I love Friends, or sitcoms more generally? A frequent criticism I hear of sitcoms is that they're not realistic. What on TV is realistic? Are sitcoms contrived? Absolutely! Isn't that the point of TV? On a medium where not even the news can be said to accurately portray reality, and "reality" shows are a thinly veiled fusion of game show and soap opera, why do we care about realism? (I could go into a philosophical discussion on the nature of reality here, but that might be ill-advised, as philosophy is my Achilles heel.)

I love to read, and while I do sometimes read non-fiction, my obsession is the mystery novel. Like TV, mystery novels are an escape for me. But the two represent very different kinds of escape. In mystery novels I may not always escape life, especially if I'm reading about terrorism or war, but I can escape MY life. After all, I've never had to solve a murder or fight bad guys. Sitcoms are the reverse. I may be able to escape "real" life, but I can't escape my life. My favorite sitcoms are the ones on which I find characters and situations with which I identify. I've yet to share any characteristics with the people on reality shows, but the characters on Friends often remind me of me, if obviously exaggerated.

Maybe for most people the chances of drunkenly marrying a friend in Vegas or accidentally becoming pregnant with his child are utterly nil, but while I don't hope for those to happen, I can't deny that they'd be possible. When Phoebe struggled with being a vegetarian while pregnant or whether to wear a fur coat that was given as a gift, I could understand the sentiments. Ross's fear the first time he had to teach a lecture hall full of students was touching because I'd been there, too. I can't say that I am, or would want to be, any of these characters, but I can identify with them.

And that's why I will miss Friends, or at least new episodes of Friends. Was it intellectual or high-brow? No, but it made me laugh, and occasionally think, and that's all I ask of a TV show.