I’ll admit, I tried to write this article once before with a far more serious tone and simply couldn’t do it, it didn’t feel true to Matthew Perry or to Chandler Bing. As an avid Friends fan I wanted to add a lighter, more personal touch to show the impact that Perry’s work had on me and so many others.
I grew up in what my girlfriend calls a “Friends household” - my dad would watch it every morning on Comedy Central and show me the episodes he and my mum watched live in the 90s. I immediately resonated with the character of Chandler, the quick-witted king of sarcasm who provides the funniest of the jokes in the show. He begins his arc on the show by being desperately awkward around women and yearning to find a partner, lest he end up like Mr Heckles and become “crazy snake man”. Eventually, after the trials and tribulations of the 1990s New York dating scene he finds love just across the hall, marrying Monica and living his dream life, happily ever after.
As a very awkward and sarcastic man I find myself relating to the character of Chandler. There was a line said by Phoebe's boyfriend Roger, which Perry repeated in the Friends Reunion show decades later, that Chandler was “so funny” but he “wouldn’t wanna be there when the laughter stops.” This moment stuck with me and echoes times in my own life where I have used outlets such as humour as distractions for my own personal battles. For me and so many others, Perry helped us through our battles but was never able to leave his own behind.
For me and so many others, Perry helped us through our battles but was never able to leave his own behind.
Thus far, I have spent my time discussing the life of Chandler and not Matthew Perry, which is where the tragedy of Perry’s life post-Friends comes in. Throughout the filming of the show and the years after he struggled very badly with drug and alcohol addiction, with he himself saying that he can’t rewatch the show because he could chart which addiction afflicted him when: “I could go drinking… opiates… drinking… cocaine. Like I could tell season by season by how I looked.” Furthermore, Perry had feelings for his co-star Jennifer Anniston which made his experience filming the show extremely difficult. This preceded a string of Hollywood romances, none of which lasted and Perry was supposedly “alone and desperate for a family”.
In the end, Chandler lived the life of Perry’s dreams and Perry lived the life Chandler always feared.
