15 Things That Will Happen To You When “Friends” Becomes Available On Netflix

On January 1st, the world will change. Friends will become available on Netflix. Oh, and it will also be the first day of 2015 and it will be your chance to reinvent yourself and change your life and make resolutions and stuff. But that’s irrelevant. Because instead of thinking about improving your life for the better and becoming happy, you will be holed up for days, investing in the lives of impossibly beautiful people. Here are 15 things that will happen to you during this exquisite time in history.

1. You will develop a new way of looking at time. Everything will be measured in the length of a Friends episode – 22 minutes. When do you have to meet your annoying friend for happy hour? In 2 episodes of Friends. How long will it take to cook dinner tonight? One episode. How long did you work out for yesterday? Zero episodes.

2. You will hate anyone that tries to make you get up and do something. They say annoying and unnecessary things, like “let’s go for a walk!” or “when are you planning on taking a shower?” Just hurl an insult at them, like “killjoy” or “Mudblood” and get back to work on living vicariously through thin, tan, attractive people.

3. You will feel fully gratified in your decision to spend $7.99 on Netflix every month. You’re broke enough right now that you question every purchasing decision that you make, from a winter coat down to an orange. But you Never. Question. Netflix.

4. You will develop a CPE (Cookies Per Episode) statistic. You will begin snacking on something specific and notice that you average an impressive amount of said snack with each passing episode of Friends. Really, the food itself doesn’t matter, it can be anything. Brownies Per Episode… Bagels Per Episode… Entire-Pans-of-Lasagna Per Episode. Whatever is the most successful in allowing you to metaphorically swallow all of the feelings.

5. You will only leave the house for really serious situations. Like grocery shopping. Or a fire.

6. You will try really hard to enjoy being social, but it will end up being a hassle. Happy hours. Potluck dinners. Birthday parties. Whatever you’re doing, you will wonder how long you have to stand there and listen to this guy talk about his “job” as a “Social Media Professional” before you can go home, turn on your T.V. or computer, and watch other people exist instead.

7. You will look forward to returning to Netflix after work the way some people look forward to returning home to a lover. This does not concern you, because Netflix has loved you more than any human ever could.

8. Weird questions will start popping up in your brain. Questions like “how many calories can I burn by breathing?” or “when was the last time I spoke out loud?” When you start a new tv show on Netflix, you lose your sense of time, and your ability to move off of a couch. You start to wonder how long you can continue this way of living before your body morphs into a puddle similar to that of Alex Mack. Except instead of a puddle of cool silver liquid, you would turn into a puddle of queso dip and cellulite.

9. You will still sign up for a gym membership. Because it’s a new year. And this is the year that you get in shape! You know you will end up going 3 times, and then paying for another 8 months before you cancel your membership. And then you will secretly enjoy it when LA Fitness sends you weekly emails saying “We miss you! Come back!” Because you’ll feel like someone is pining after you. And you will reject them. Because you shun anything that is related to sweating.

10. You will wonder who Jennifer Aniston sold her soul to. Because that betch just does not age. How does she look even better now than she did 20 years ago? What’s the point of even trying to work on your appearance when there are Jennifer Anistons in the world? You now feel even more solidified about your decision to eventually never use your gym membership.

11. You will forget what the sun looks like. You will wonder if blinds and curtains were invented by someone who knew that years and years down the line, something called Netflix would be created and mole-people-wanna-bes like yourself would need a way to block out the source of all productivity and happiness. You will then be alarmed that you had an actual thought that wasn’t related to the will-they-won’t-they drama of Ross and Rachel.

12. You will compare your apartment to the characters’ apartments. This will greatly depress you. Stop doing this. It will get you nowhere. This is the one instance where you can remind yourself that it’s all make-believe. Now go back to watching the show and laying in your small bed that doubles as a couch and a table and a portal where pizza crumbs go to die.

13. Once you are starting to run out of episodes to watch, you will ask for new show recommendations on Facebook. Seventeen people will tell you to watch Breaking Bad. Twenty-nine people will just “like” your status and you will hate them because that does not help you. Some pretentious person will comment that they “don’t really watch T.V.” but they could recommend some good books? You defriend them and then instantly forget that they were ever a person.

14. You will finish Season 10 and sink into a deep depression. What are you supposed to do now? What is the meaning of life? Whose drama are you supposed to focus on now that all the Friends have their lives together? You will have a minor panic attack that cannot be solved with a pan of lasagna.

15. You will begin binge watching a new show, and repeat the process all over again. Except this time, you’ll try to move a little more. And improve your CPE rate. Because what just happened was an exception. Because it was Friends. And everyone stopped functioning for a little while when it became available for streaming. But now it’s time to get back to living life and continuing to not look like Jennifer Aniston. God speed.