Unshakable Love in “Seinfeld”

The success of the TV series Seinfeld was powered, at least in part, by love … even though the series was not ostensibly about that. Love, as the four friends in Seinfeld often vainly pursued it, was understood to be found in a “couple” – something that none of them managed to have for very long. In one episode (or was it many episodes?), I recall Jerry and George lamenting their inability to get married, seeing it as a sign of their own immaturity. These two friends often displayed and reveled in childlike behavior (arguments about Superman, for ex.), which became a visible sign of their being totally unprepared for responsibilities of becoming somebody’s significant other.

The writers of the show must have been very aware of the comic distance between the cast members’ failed aspirations to “couple-hood” and the serious issue of truly loving others. The show explored this distance because the writers knew that love was a serious and worthy goal of human interactions – valued by the characters in the TV series as well as the people who watched it. Many of the funny moments in the show focused on the characters’ inability to make the circle of their self-preoccupation wide enough to truly take the time to care about (and adjust to) the needs of potential partners.

But viewers would have never enjoyed the show if they didn’t sense some admirable quality in the foursome. That quality was an unshakable love, trust and loyalty to one another. What they could not extend to the world outside their circle, they offered in abundance to one another. And while they didn’t perhaps achieve the intimacy they would have had in a healthy relationship that included sex, their unspoken and implicit trust in one another glued them together with amazing amounts of trust. Of course they didn’t often “trust” that one of their friends could follow through with a promise or a goal (like George’s aspiration to be an architect), but they never questioned each other’s sincerity (George sincerely would have loved to have been an architect). This was THE feature of the show that allowed the characters to explore so many interesting topics often left unexplored in other TV sitcoms (like masturbation).

The love of the characters for one another was so steady that they often chose friendship over sex. One of the funniest instances of this theme occurred in season 4, episode 16, when George was trying to break up with a girlfriend without hurting her feelings. The answer? George would pretend that he was gay. Acting impulsively on this idea, George took his girlfriend to Jerry’s apartment without notice in the hopes that Jerry would confirm that he and George were a “couple.” Unfortunately, George barges in to Jerry’s apartment to find him passionately kissing – you guessed it – a woman! When Jerry’s date leaves quickly thereafter, he summarizes the situation to George, saying, “You stupid idiot.”

But what may be more amazing in this scene is that the friends’ relationship was so close that George never hesitated in launching this hair-brained scheme in the first place. And it turns out that George’s trust in Jerry was well founded. While Jerry was understandably upset about losing the attention of a beautiful woman, he quickly resigned himself to a situation dictated by his love for George: my friend does stupid things, but that’s how he is and I won’t rupture that friendship because he does crazy things sometimes without consulting me. Seinfeld indulged George's caprice even though (as he explained very well in his own standup routines), having a woman is the one thing that men know that they want! (a)

In some ways, one might think that the selfish or cowardly way the Seinfeld characters acted with people outside their circle is how people really treat each other in most circumstances in the real world. The truly unconditional friendship (aka, “love”) that the characters demonstrated day-in and day-out – allowing them to stay together no matter what else was rocking their world – is the real exception. The skeptic could rightfully ask, “Could there actually be such a group of loyal friends in normal, everyday life? Could there be such love extended and offered to people with whom we also have continuous personality conflicts and disagreements?” If viewers haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing a similar generosity and acceptance with their own friends, the show’s popularity suggests that this kind of relationship is something that many of us truly hope for.



a) “Men are not subtle - men are obvious. Women know what men want. Men know what men want. What do we want? We want women! It's the only thing we know for sure: we want women! How do we get women? Oh, we don't know that. The next step after that we have no idea.”