Matthew Perry’s Chandler Bing Gave Hope To Friendless Weirdos Everywhere

What do we owe to sitcom characters? We think about what they give us all the time — the hundreds of hours of entertainment, the laughs, the catchphrases, and god help us all, the Funko Pops. When a sitcom actor passes away, that’s the stuff that we hopefully remember, the jokes and the tender moments between fictional friends. We remember how we let these people into our homes, or nowadays our devices, and we bonded with them — frequently making them members of our families. The loss of Matthew Perry, shockingly sudden and painfully young, is going to elicit a lot of these feelings. We’re going to think about everything he gave us during 10 seasons of Friends, from the Chandler one-liners (“The fifth dentist caved and now they’re all recommending Trident?” “No you didn’t ‘get me’! It’s an electric drill! You get me you kill me!” “The eyesore from the Liberace House of Crap!”) to the tearjerking relationships (just as much his friendship with Joey as his marriage to Monica) to the assortment of hand-painted art deco ties and earth tone vests he wore all the time in Season 1.

But I cannot just think about what Matthew Perry gave us as an entertainer, and the incredible body of work he leaves behind. I can’t just think about how Matthew Perry completely created a brand new cadence for Chandler Bing. I can’t just praise his ability to deliver ridiculously complicated jokes with a rhythm and ease that was all his own (“Why yes Ross. Pressing my third nipple, it opens the delivery entrance to the magical land of Narnia”). I will point out that Matthew Perry essentially invented a brand new sitcom archetype: the lovable, completely mild, self-deprecating smart aleck, an archetype that actors ranging from Josh Peck to John Krasinski would later build careers around. I’ll point that out, but I don’t want to write 1,000 words about it, because I can only focus on what this man, this brilliant comedian, and this singular performance on a Nielsen juggernaut gave me and what I owe him.

Operating under the belief that the universal is found in revealing the bracingly personal — I would not be the person that I am today without Matthew Perry’s performance as Chandler Bing. I realize that reads a bit preposterous, maybe hyperbolic… but then again, I just ran through a list of reasons why sitcom performances are so special and why we connect with them so ferociously. And for me, a friendless, 10-year-old weirdo who didn’t know how to talk to people but knew how to make jokes (or repeat ones I heard on TV), who felt completely at sea regarding what it meant to be “a man” and was constantly picked on because of it, Chandler was “it.” In Chandler, I saw a guy who was a nerd but not nerdy, who made fun of himself before others could get to him, who had the best comebacks and most esoteric zingers that he always landed with confidence. I saw not only the man that I aspired to be (remember: I was 10), but I also saw a man that I actually could be. However awkward I felt at school or lonely I felt on those middle school weekends, I had Chandler — and Chandler had friends.

What Matthew Perry was doing as Chandler was a role, but I got so much more out of it than just entertainment. It’s like Chandler was giving me the power of not just performance, but permission — permission to say the weird thing, wear the bowling shirts, mug to an imaginary camera, and have poultry as a pet (thankfully that last one never happened, unlike the bowling shirts). Hell, Chandler Bing almost gave me permission to be gay a full decade before I came out to myself. Instead, I did use “everyone thinks Chandler’s gay but he isn’t!” as a reason to stay in the closet, at least through high school. But in thinking about how sitcom characters can change our lives, I can only imagine what a Friends with an out and proud-ish Chandler (come on, he’s not going to be proud about much and that’s why we love him) would have done to my identity.

I should point out, though, that Chandler wasn’t just a role Matthew Perry played. Watch him in interviews, he brought so much of himself to that character, so much so that they’re inextricable. And that’s why this hurts so much, because the death of Perry feels like the death of both Perry and Chandler — and I owe so much to Matthew Perry. I owe him for giving me a place to feel safe and accepted for 30 minutes a week on Thursday nights. I owe him for showing me that I could grow up to be that kind of guy, even if I still have no idea what a “transponster” is. I owe him for making me laugh, but I owe him even more for making me want to laugh when life was so confusing.

I know that praising his work is a way to pay him back for what he gave to us, but I don’t know how to pay Matthew Perry back for what he did specifically for me. Do I lock myself in a crate and do some real good thinkin’ (“And three: it hurts!”)? Or do I just keep being the man that Chandler Bing showed me I could be when I was 10 years old? I’ll do that one. Come on, could I be any more grateful?