Re Barney and his ability to con women into his bed at will; is it really that easy in the US, or just a figment of the writer’s fevered imagination?
Moved to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
PS. Although I have never seen the show, the answer to whether sitcoms reflect actual reality is almost invariably “No.”
Depends on the time fram the program narrator is referring to.
I’ve had sex with “a score plus + whatever” women.
The last becoming my wife, been faithful since.
But seeing we were married in early 1980 I guess it’s irreverent!
In the 70’s a guy could screw himself dizzy if he wished. (Good times, friends. Good times!)
Gwad help me if I outlive my mate. I have no idea of the mores going on today!
What’s the time frame of the program you’re referring to?
Not only isn’t it realistic, it isn’t intended to be realistic. It’s supposed to be funny because it’s so unrealistic. Much of the humor on this show is based on exaggeration.
Sure, it’s an exaggeration, but why wouldn’t someone like Barney be successful with women? He’s good-looking, charming, well-groomed, rich, fun to be around and allegedly great in bed. He pulls all of those complex scams not because he needs to, but because he wants to.
I don’t think it’s a matter of whether or not he’d be successful, it would be whether or not he’d be as successful as he claims to be.
Supposed his tally is over 200 women, which seems considerably less than I’d have thought if he’s really as successful as we think. Let’s assume he’s 38, and in some episode, they said he lost his virginity at 23. That’s 15 years to sleep with at least 200 women, giving us 13.3 per year or one new women every 28 days more or less.
That’s not out of the realm of possible for just about anyone; it strikes me as a reasonable average if your entire goal is just to get laid in bars.
I bet the scams are just for fun and rarely work; in reality he probably has a lot more luck with somewhat drunk chicks just after last call, or with girls just coming off a breakup, etc… and in a city the size of NYC, there’s probably plenty of them around on any given weekend.
It’s not that it would be unheard of for a 30 something guy to sleep with 200 women, it’s that most women aren’t going to just automatically have sex with you based on little more then you telling them you’re an astronaut.
That’s the whole idea. The majority of the women he’s slept with, he gets based on the fantastical lies he tells them.
Didn’t Ted in one episode mention Barney having a 18 % success rate ?
Marshall has some charts that explain this…
If you think about it, that’s about 1/7 and 200 girls is 4 years of working the bar.
Also, bear in mind, in the concept of the show you are not seeing real life, you are seeing Ted’s recollections of what happened as he tells the story to his kids. Ted is not always a reliable narrator.
Cecelia you’re breaking my heart, you’re shaking my confidence daily.
Neither is Barney…or Marshal, or anyone on the show really.
Does he? We know about the cons, and we know about his successes, but are we sure that the second are the result of the first? I have the impression that most of his actual sexual conquests come from just being rich and charming while wearing a suit; his “plays” are there to make it more challenging for him.
I fail to see how someone like Barney actually would be well within the realm of possibility. If all he wants is to get laid, there are plenty of women who want the same thing. They buy into his lies for the same reason he tells them, they want to believe in something fanciful. That, and just watch the next time, if one shoots him down he’s on to the next in seconds. It’s just a numbers game and he plays it just like that.
We know at least some of them are. We’ve seen him leaving (at least one) girl’s apartment with a spacesuit saying he’s has to go to the moon (or something along those lines. Also, I’m pretty sure we’ve had at least one episode (and probably a few other storylines) where he talked about his successes based on his lies.
Some are just stupid. Those are the one’s he chases after. Remember “Oh Honey” that’s his demographic.
Right, but again these details are all being filled in by an unreliable narrator in the future who very obviously embellishes many parts of the story.
Here’s another hint… Ted and friends did not actually eat that many large sandwiches in college.
Also, remember that ‘post hoc =/= prompter hoc’. Just because a girl puts up with a con and gets with Barney, it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s fallen for the con or the con got him the girl.
Barney’s character is an exaggeration of the sleazy pick-up artist. Such people exists, but aren’t as outrageous as Barney or his schemes. Go to any popular nightclub with a 20-something demographic for 3 nights in a row, you’ll find one, and not just in the US.
That’s not being an unreliable narrator, that’s just not telling your kids that you were smoking pot. I used to tell my (now ex) wife funny stories about going to Wal-Mart at 3 in the morning with my college friends. I left why we were all still awake at 3 in the morning.