There Is No "Fun Bobby"

In season 2 of "Friends," Monica rekindles a relationship with a character the friends call "Fun Bobby." Through the course of the show, we see that Fun Bobby only lives up to the first part of his name when he's had a few too many: He's the funny, charming life-of-the-party as long as he's a little tipsy. Without, he's just a semi-depressed guy with a handful of boring stories.

But in my experience, Fun Bobby doesn't actually exist. At the risk of waxing after-school-special, I have never met anyone I preferred drunk to sober. If anything, the slurred, semi-adolescent advances of a Fun Bobby are more Sad Bobby to me, and quickly turn to Really Lonely and Maybe Depressed Bobby if he absolutely needs the bottle to have a enjoy himself. Sad, because Sober Bobby is so much more interesting to me -- he has actual thoughts, reactions, sensitivity, even insecurities that all say something about who he really is and what his life experiences have been. And anyone who isn't enough themselves without a drink does not magically become that with -- it's just a symptom that something else is wrong. "Fun" Bobby is only surpasses him in uninhibitedness (is that even a word?). But when you remove inhibition, sometimes all you get is Too Much, Too Fast. And while my heart goes out to that guy, I guess what I'm really interested in is the real, "Un-Fun" guy.