For decades I accepted what sitcoms and soaps told me: that groups of like-minded people form and stay together effortlessly. Now the former Friend has told it like it is

Lisa Kudrow says being and staying friends with her Friends co-stars was tough at times. “That six-way relationship took some work – and we did it,” she told the Armchair Expert podcast. They “worked hard at being friends”.

This is no Sex and the City-style daggers-drawn revelation – Kudrow essentially said that they sometimes had to act like sensible adult humans to maintain the easy screen intimacy we all watched play out on Monica’s couch. But for me it came as a relief and a confirmation of something I only recently muddled out: TV friendships aren’t real.

Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist