5 Creepy Friends Storylines That 100% Don't Hold Up Today

In comedy, what's deemed acceptable is always changing, which is why it can often be a fool's errand to try to judge an old sitcom through a modern lens. That said, "Friends" holds up surprisingly well. The series generally treats its LGBTQ+ side characters with dignity (even bravely airing a lesbian wedding episode long before gay marriage was legal in the U.S.), and the main womanizer in the gang is far less predatory than the later Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) of "How I Met Your Mother" fame. Barney belongs in prison for some of his stunts, while Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc) is relatively harmless. 

Still, there are occasional moments through its run where one can't help but wonder: Would the "Friends" writers be making these jokes today? Or would they, in light of shifting cultural values, scrap the bit altogether? The five entries on this list are moments where the answer to that question seems like a clear-cut yes. And just a heads-up: We're not including the storyline where Ross tries to kiss his cousin, because that one was just as weird in the '90s as it is today. 

In Season 10's "The One Where the Stripper Cries," Ross (David Schwimmer) and Monica (Courteney Cox) are horrified to realize they once kissed at a college house party. How did such a misunderstanding occur? Well, Ross explains he was told that Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) was passed out drunk on his bed, so he went into the room to kiss her. 

"She was lying on my bed, all buried in peoples coats," Ross recalled. "Well, I went to kiss her on the forehead, you know. But it was so dark, I accidentally got her lips. I started to pull away, but then I felt her start to kiss me back. It was only for a second, but ... it was amazing." This is all setup for the punchline that Ross actually kissed Monica, so it's easy to look past the bigger question here: Ross, why are you kissing a barely-conscious drunk girl buried under a pile of coats?

The script seems aware of just how creepy this is, as Ross throws in a bunch of qualifiers to downplay his actions. It seems like there was a sort of cost-benefit analysis going on here, where the writers decided that making Ross look like a creep was worth the big punchline, but would they have still decided it was worth the trouble in a post-Me Too era? A modern version of this scene likely would've altered the circumstances of Ross and Monica's infamous kiss to at least some extent. As is, feel free to skip this episode. 

If there's one area where society has improved over the past thirty years, it's that people generally take predatory behavior from women more seriously than they used to. Maybe it's because of the famous "South Park" episode calling out society's perverse response to female teachers sleeping with male students, or because of critics like Pop Culture Detective extensively detailing the bias, but this Season 8 scene doesn't feel lighthearted. In "The One With the Rumor," Monica reveals that Rachel started a rumor in high school that a teenage Ross made out with the school's 50-year-old librarian. 

The joke here is that Ross should be embarrassed for making out with an old lady; nobody questions why a middle-aged woman is preying on a teenaged boy. It's a rare situation where a later sitcom, "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" — a show not known for its political correctness — actually handled this sort of storyline in a more socially conscious way. When Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton) brags about sleeping with a middle-aged librarian when he was 14, his friends are quick to point that he was assaulted. It's odd to see the Paddy's Pub gang handle a situation with more maturity than the "Friends" gang, to say the least.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

One of the biggest cultural shifts of the past thirty years is that people have grown far more suspicious of major age gaps. When 38-year-old Jerry Seinfeld dated a 17-year-old in the '90s, the newspapers were a lot calmer about it than they'd be today. It was only starting in the late 2010s that Seinfeld would draw serious flak online for said relationship. 

With that in mind, it's difficult to imagine a 2020s version of "Friends" being so cavalier about Ross dating one of his college students. The show is aware that the relationship is awkward, and it does at least clarify that the student (Elizabeth, played by Alexandra Holden) is a legal adult who has already passed Ross' class. Still, there's likely a reason why "How I Met Your Mother" never tried a similar storyline: The series generally wanted viewers to like Ted Mosby, and him dating one of his 20-year-old students wouldn't have gone over well with a 2010s audience.

"Friends" had a lot of odd age gap storylines over its run, with Monica's relationship with Richard (a man who knew her as a child and is friends with her dad) probably being the most infamous. But at least with Monica's storyline, she isn't the one who comes off poorly. It's easy to picture a modern "Friends" tweaking the Monica/Richard relationship to make it more palatable, whereas it likely would've scrapped the Ross/Elizabeth relationship entirely.

While "Friends" was often groundbreaking in its empathetic portrayal of LGBTQ+ characters, the writers would be the first to admit that they didn't handle Charles Bing (Kathleen Turner) all that gracefully. Charles is portrayed as a drag queen and referred to with he/him pronouns; a 2020s "Friends" would likely refer to Charles as a trans woman. 

"Pronouns were not yet something that I understood. So we didn't refer to that character as 'she.' That was a mistake," writer Marta Kauffman told the BBC World Service in 2022. Turner herself has acknowledged that the writing for her character is dated, if well-intentioned: "I don't think it's aged well," she told Gay Times in 2018. "It was a 30 minute sitcom. It became a phenomenon, but no one ever took it seriously as a social comment."

Most notably, a modern "Friends" probably would have treated Charles Bing's existence as an inherent punchline. Still, the '90s show did at least give the character a sweet moment in Season 7 when Chandler invites her to his wedding; that right there is a kinder gesture to the trans community than anything from "HIMYM," a show that is somehow far meaner to trans people than its predecessor. 

Yet another age gap storyline: This one is between 18-year-old Frank Jr. (Giovanni Ribisi) and 44-year-old Alice (Debra Jo Rupp). The two met when Alice was Frank's high school teacher, and unlike the other big age gap relationships on the show, these two stick together for the rest of the series. To be fair, "Friends" goes to great lengths to get audiences on board. Alice is portrayed as sweet and innocent, while Frank Jr.'s portrayed as being dumb but distrustful of authority. The audience might be inclined to assume there are some perverse power dynamics at play, but the writers work extra hard to reassure the audience otherwise. 

Today, "Friends" fans often struggle to put up with these two when rewatching the series. "She should have been investigated," one user wrote on the "Friends" subreddit. So much of the comedy in Frank Jr. and Alice's relationship comes down to the writers balancing the inherent discomfort audiences feel about the sweetness of the two's dynamic. Maybe they'd have still gone for an age-gap dynamic in 2026, but a 2020s "Friends" likely would've aged Frank up a few more years.