American Culture

In the increasingly popular CBS sit-com, "How I Met Your Mother," represents much of what an average person wants in their desired partner. Although they are all good friends, the main characters of the show each, respectively, represent what different people want in different relationships. The show cleverly and intelligently brings up the social rules and faux-pas of the dating scene. "How I Met Your Mother" points out the different stereotypes that are present in much of today's Americans.
Ted Mosby, the hopeless romantic, believes that every girl he meets just might be "the one." In these terms, "the one" signifies a person's soul mate or spouse. Each girl he meets in each different episode, he assumes that she will be his wife. Because Ted is a male who wants to be the settled down man with a wife and kids, he provides much of the comedy in the show. If this was a woman character, she might be found as annoying or, put into casual context, "insane" or "psycho." This is why Ted makes the audience laugh so much; he is not even close to what the public and the media outlets view as a socially acceptable role of a male looking for a relationship. After carefully analyzing his character, it almost seems as if his character is mocking the stereotypical woman's approach to dating. In the first few episodes, he quickly falls for a girl he saw at a party he threw and somehow knew that he was going to marry her. This girl turns out to be one of the other main characters in the show, Robin, who ends up dating Ted many times in the first four seasons of the show.

Robin, a reporter for a local news channel, is one of the five friends in this show. She is not quite as romantic as Ted is. While Ted will do whatever it takes to please or woo a woman, Robin is much more of an independent person. While mostly men are characterized to be the gender that is more independent and not looking for a serious relationship, the writers of this show made this character a woman,...