The Unexpected Comfort of ‘How I Met Your Father’

A mid-pandemic life raft ended up being a reminder of simpler times.

My sophomore year of college started with “How I Met Your Mother.”

I had just moved into my first apartment with four roommates, some of whom I’d known for years and others who were effectively strangers. As another University of Michigan Welcome Week unfolded, we started every day on the couch bingeing this show none of us had ever seen before, becoming instant fans. Whoever woke first each morning would start the day’s viewing, the theme song beckoning us to crawl out of our respective bedrooms in a Pavlovian undergraduate hangover ritual.

We never found our way back to the series, then in its sixth season on CBS, but would always remember it as an essential part of becoming roommates (our WiFi password, created that week, was “Swarley”). I’ve only revisited “HIMYM” once since its notorious 2014 series finale — it aged poorly enough for me to make immediate peace with never returning again — and had no interest in Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger’s “How I Met Your Father” (not to be confused with the ill-fated “How I Met Your Dad”) when it premiered on Hulu in 2022. Did we really need to revive this instantly stale comedy? Hadn’t the multicam sitcom gone out of fashion?

No one was more surprised than I was when I binged all of “How I Met Your Father.”

Starring Hilary Duff, Chris Lowell, Francia Raisa, Suraj Sharma, Tien Train, and Tom Ainsley, “How I Met Your Father” is the most logical follow up to its predecessor in the current climate. The first season was everything critics claimed; a little clunky, a little out-of-touch with its character demographic, and banking on levels of “HIMYM” nostalgia that I didn’t fully believe existed — but it also dropped during my second pandemic winter spent living with my parents, unsure of when, how, or if I would return to New York City or to anything resembling an adult life. Even as I rolled my eyes at how it misrepresented city life and its 30-year-olds sounded 40, “HIMYF” became an unexpected comfort, a chance to numb my mind and laugh at some easy punchlines while the cast quietly charmed me.

When Season 2 Part 1 premiered a year later, I felt similarly dismissive; yes, I had enjoyed the first season, but I recognized its flaws and had clearly not been in the best place mentally. I was pleasantly surprised for the second time when “HIMYF” Season 2 was a marked improvement from its debut season, leaving “How I Met Your Mother” further in the rearview as the new cast and writers found their footing. For me, watching the show in 2023 was a relieving reminder of the year in between; of getting a new job, finding an apartment, moving back East, and settling into my new-old life. It also cast a light on new developments that have been creeping up for years now and seem to have hit a tipping point.

Later this month, I’ll be attending my college roommate’s wedding; the third to tie the knot since we graduated, at the first wedding we’ll all attend together where everyone will be partnered except for me. I find myself experiencing the inevitable isolation of many others in their early 30s, surrounded by couples and weddings and children (!) and unable to help feeling left behind. As I binged the back half of “How I Met Your Father” Season 2 (which premiered in late-May), I marveled at how most of the friends on the show were single and found myself wondering what it’s like to have an everyday squad in the same boat — even though I definitely have in the past.

I don’t particularly mind being unpartnered; much like Duff’s protagonist Sophie at the top of Season 1, it’s been the majority of my experience, and between that and having no siblings I might be better equipped than most for my current circumstance. What I never really prepared for was my singleness being juxtaposed with so many others’ lack thereof. While I still have single friends, there’s a shared feeling of fighting against the tide — whether or not the singledom is a choice — against societal expectations and the overall trend of our age group, and being surrounded by people who were once single yet don’t always empathize with our status and struggles. Watching the 30-somethings on “How I Met Your Father” feels like a peek into an alternate reality where the shared journey continues beyond college or our 20s (as it does on “New Girl”). It’s the feeling I get when I commune with single friends, and a comfort everyone deserves.

So much of “How I Met Your Father” is relationships; missed connections, friends working through conflict, love that grows or shifts or ends. Seeing these issues play out — even at breakneck speed, with sitcom silliness — doesn’t change the fact that I’m sharing all of those experiences in real-time. Told from the future just like its predecessor, “How I Met Your Father” has the gift of hindsight and big picture, while I’m still figuring out how disparate stories and characters will all fit together down the line. Life changes can be slow and deliberate, or as fast as a TV plot twist — and anything in between.

“HIMYF” is not particularly innovative, groundbreaking, or prestige, but I’m actually grateful to have a cheesy multicam series accompanying me through this bizarre moment; Even the format and production take me back to a time when my life and my friends’ weren’t so different. The show’s company might not look like my own (or even my favorite TV friends), but they’re messy and goofy and put a smile on my face. The missteps and shenanigans make me feel seen (or sane), and also remind me of sharing those shenanigans with people whose lives have understandably changed. If I close my eyes during that lo-fi cover of the theme song, I can just about feel that sophomore year apartment, when all I had to do was press play to get the gang together.

The “How I Met Your Father” Season 2 finale airs July 11 on Hulu.