Can we have real-life groups of friends like we see on TV?

Or why does no one show up at my house when I’ve got the blues?

“Sex and the City.” “Big Bang Theory.” “Friends.” “Cheers.” “Seinfield.” These shows and movies like “The Big Chill,” “The Breakfast Club,” and “St. Elmo’s Fire” have one thing in common: they feature groups of friends who are always together, always in each other’s lives.

These friends show up for each other. No matter what else they’re doing, even if they’re at work, the characters drop everything to take their friends to the hospital or bail them out of jail. They bring donuts or pizza or booze if a friend is having a bad day. They sit together at the church when someone’s father dies. They meet every day at the coffee shop or the bar. They’re not just friends; they’re family.

I just finished watching the series “Somebody Somewhere” on Max/HBO for the second time. It’s about a woman named Sam who comes home to the family farm in a small Kansas town when her sister Holly is dying of cancer. After Holly dies, Sam sticks around. Her family is a mess. Her mom is drinking too much, her dad can’t keep up with the farm anymore, and her sister Trish’s marriage is in trouble.

Sam, a large woman in her 40s who feels alone and unlovable, meets a high school classmate, Joel, who invites her to what he calls “choir practice.” It’s really an open mic. There Sam rediscovers her love of singing and meets a diverse and loving group of friends. In a world where she does not feel accepted and where her biological family is in deep pain, she finds solace in this chosen family that feels like home.

Sam and Joel, a geeky gay guy who also feels like a misfit, become best friends. This show is angsty, sweet, and quirky. The language is rough, and some of the humor is crude, but the love is a soothing counter to this crazy world. And we get to hear Sam--Bridgett Everett in real life--sing in every episode. Her voice is like a chocolate milkshake.

Friendships like we see on TV rarely happen in real life. I certainly have never had friends like that. I do have wonderful friends, most attached to the various parts of my life—writer friends, church friends, music friends—but I have never seen most of their homes, nor have they seen mine. No one is available to me every minute. Real people have obligations and limitations.

Nor are real people as intuitive as fictional characters. I don’t know anyone who would glance at me and say, “What’s wrong?” or “You seem sad,” or “Is everything all right?” It’s not that they’re selfish; it’s that they don’t know I’m having a bad day. It’s not like it’s written on my forehead in flashing lights. Nobody wrote them a script with all the right words to say. My own mother might not even notice. She loved me with all her heart, but we didn’t talk much about emotions. We joked or buried our feelings in food.

The other night, I didn’t have the energy for the complicated dinner I had planned and no other options waiting in the fridge. I thought about going to a restaurant, but I didn’t want to change my clothes, put on makeup, and sit at a table by myself.

I came close to posting on Facebook: Would somebody please bring me dinner?”

Maybe someone would have. But what’s my excuse for not providing my own? I’m not sick or crippled. Besides, I’m supposed to be on a diet. Vegetables, fruit, fish, yogurt, whole grains, and olive oil up the wazoo. Pizza is not on the list.

TV friends are always showing up with food or going out to eat together. It’s a wonder every character doesn’t weigh at least 300 pounds.

I ended up making zucchini fritters* and air-fried sweet potatoes as planned. That left me with a counter full of dirty dishes. TV people never seem to have dirty dishes, even when they cook. They don’t do laundry, pay bills, or buy ordinary groceries like bread and milk and yogurt.

They rarely eat alone. When they do, sad music plays. Maybe they share a few bites with a dog or cat. But it’s not like me, one plate, one glass, one fork, one spoon every day, and no one knocks on the door.

It’s fiction, made up, not true. Those friend groups make it easier to write, cast, and film. Having them together all the time ensures every member of the ensemble has a part to play in each episode. You can only offer so many shots of a person alone with no one to talk to. Silent films died a long time ago.

My first impulse is to wish I had that group of friends, but then again, would I really want other people in my space all the time? How many times has Sam’s me-time been invaded by Freddie honking at the curb, Joel at the door, or her sister screaming on the phone?

How can anyone get any work done with friends insisting that doing things with them is more important? Maybe I don’t really want that, at least not all the time.

When we’re kids, if we’re lucky, we have friends to hang out with at school and after school. But we grow up and go in different directions. Is the tight-knit friend group something you release to embrace work and family? Later, when you have no more work or family, can you gather a new group of friends, the kind that are always there for each other?

Even in fiction, how can it last? If Sam and her friends start new relationships with people outside the group, won’t the group fall apart? Is any group of friends together forever or just for a special time in their lives—or until their show gets cancelled?

I’m not going to spoil the ending of “Somebody, Somewhere,” but I loved it.

Then the credits were rolling, and I was 73, alone, with out-of-control hair, and a phone that hadn’t rung in at least a week.

I have been ruined by TV shows, movies, and books where there’s always someone around to help.

Even the fiction that I write, my Up Beaver Creek series, centers on a group of friends who have quickly become like family. It’s the kind of story I like to read.

In happy-friends fiction, no one is standing alone in the kitchen crying over grated zucchini.

Let’s Talk

• Do you or have you ever had a group of friends so tight you spoke every day and spent most of your free time together? Did it feel suffocating? Or wonderful?

• Have you had to choose between the needs of your friends and the needs of your family?

• Is it possible to have such a group in real life?

• Are there “friends” movies or TV shows you would recommend that I didn’t mention?

Can we do it alone? We are. That’s real life.

* The zucchini fritters were from The Easiest Mediterranean Diet for Seniors by Mary Ellsworth. The food is tasty, but I would dispute the “easiest” part of the title.

---

How did I end up alone? My first marriage ended in divorce. My second husband died of Alzheimer’s after we had moved to the Oregon coast, far from family. I never had any kids, only dogs. Now I live by myself in a big house in the woods. You can read our story in my memoir, No Way Out of This: Loving a Partner with Alzheimer’s, available at your favorite bookseller. Visit https://www.suelick.com for information on all of my books.