With the How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) series finale still on fans’ minds, I’m sure we all know how much it sucks to watch one of our favorite shows end. And judging by everyone’s reactions to the HIMYM finale, we all also know what it’s like to have a series end in an incredibly disappointing way – maybe even a way that ruins the series for you. So why watch it? Being a huge fan of HIMYM myself, I’ve been asking myself the same question the last few days. When the finale aired March 31, I was a couple of episodes behind, so I hid in my room with my headphones in to avoid any spoilers, planning on binge watching in the next few days to catch up so I could join the global series-finale discussion. But after my roommate’s reactions, I’m not sure I want to watch it at all. Ever since a particularly unproductive month of my sophomore year when Netflix took over my life, HIMYM has been my go-to show for time wasting. It’s given me both hope for life and friendships after college and a reason to hang out with my girlfriends on Monday nights. The characters are part of my imaginary family of characters, and their stories are my stories. To have it all end in a disappointing way ... maybe it’s just better to never see the finale and make up my own ending. This predicament is not without precedence in my life: I take you back to my middle school days, when Gilmore Girls was my bible. I grew up with the show, learning what I knew about relationships, high school and eventually college from Rory Gilmore. When the show ended, I simply wasn’t ready. I watched the second-to-last episode of the series, watched Rory turn down Logan’s marriage proposal and then decided the series ending was going down a path I wasn’t ready to follow. So I just never watched the finale. This way, I got to make up my own ending in which Luke and Lorelai get together and live happily ever after and, more importantly, I didn’t have to face the fact that my all-time favorite show was ending forever. I don’t know what the right way to go is with the HIMYM series finale. Most people think I’m crazy for even thinking about not watching it. And part of me thinks I’m crazy too – the part of me that is dying to know what everyone is talking about. But these characters are my characters now, so why not write my own ending? Either way, it’s a sad farewell to a beloved show.
