The Struggle of Being the New Friend, Explained | Friends, HIMYM, & Beyond

The Take

Friends' Phoebe Buffay and How I Met Your Mother's Robin Scherbatsky both encounter a particularly difficult quirk of friendship dynamics: being the New Friend in the group. Being the newest friend working your way into an already existing friend group can be difficult, and leave you feeling like no matter how well you’ve integrated into the group, they’ll always choose each other over you. Sometimes the New Friend is able to overcome this hurdle and truly become an equal friend with everyone else in the group, but others get left feeling like they’ll always be second best no matter what. So, let’s take a deeper look at this trope, how Friends' Phoebe Buffay and How I Met Your Mother's Robin Scherbatsky exemplify the good and bad side of the New Friend dilemma, and what it all tells us about the power of friendship.