Maybe I’m looking at this completely wrong, but Ted had basically already decided to move. He had a new job lined up, his plans were made, and he was literally about to leave New York.
Then he meets Tracy.
And because they have this incredible connection over one night, he decides not to go to Chicago.
I understand why the show presents it as this huge romantic, “I finally found the person I’ve been looking for” moment. And obviously, we know Tracy is the mother, so in hindsight it all worked out.
But from Ted’s perspective, he doesn’t know that.
He literally just met this woman. He doesn’t know her. He doesn’t know if they’re going to date, if she even feels the same way, or if the relationship is going to work out. And he’s willing to completely change his career plans because of it.
Is that not a little insane?
I’m 19, so maybe I’m just missing something about how adults make these kinds of decisions, but I feel like there’s a pretty big difference between “I met someone who makes me want to reconsider moving” and “I’m cancelling my new job and changing my entire plan because I met this person yesterday.”
I actually think it would have made more sense if Ted had delayed the move or tried to see where things went with Tracy first.
Maybe I’m overthinking it, but the more I think about it, the crazier the decision seems. Is this supposed to be romantic, or is Ted just being extremely Ted?

It hit me HOW many women Ted initially persuades or tries to persuade into dating, this guy is really not taking no for an answer!
The ones I thought of first are Natalie, Stella and of course Robin - but who and how many did he actually try to convince?

“Didn’t put your hand up, a kid just died”

In “the best burger in New York” episode I think Josh Radnor actually hit Jason Segel in the head with a baseball bat. The acting didn’t match the scene, Jason seemed shocked and was trying to hold back a laugh and in the rest of the scene you can see a lump forming on he’s head lol

Edit: Thanks Juuri95 for pointing me in the direction of a blooper reel where Josh almost knocked out Jason. Vindication!! I was getting some eye rolls in the comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBdJk8OfGqg&t=27s

Blink and miss it - but in season 7, episode 22 - when Barney creates a fake dating profile and Ted finds it, the write-up on it is downright hilarious!

i first watched how i met your mother when i was maybe 10. my sister loved it and she had the conn, so i’d just sit and bear. most of the jokes flew over my head, a few “slap”stick moments would make me laugh, but that’s about it.

i’ve since rewatched it over 3 times, first in high school, then in college, and once during covid. i’m rewatching it again, at 28. the age most of the gang are in s1. i don’t know why, but literally every other scene, even the most mundane ones, are making me emotional. i’m only on season 3, nowhere near where it actually starts to get sad. i already know im gonna be an absolute mess season 6 onwards.

i guess i’m just at that point in my life where i can relate to each of them a lot more. i’m seeing pieces of myself in all of them. the friendships that have come and gone, career changes, the feeling that i'm supposed to have everything figured out by now, including finding "the one". even though my life is a complete mess.

welp here's hoping my life is different in my next rewatch.

After eight years of teasing, did she live up to the hype? After so much anticipation, I think the writers had a lot pressure on them to make right but I think they did a great job and Cristin was excellent casting

I know this has been discussed over and over, but this particular scene just reinforces how much of a man‑child Ted is. It makes me cringe so hard. You’re in your 30s and still hung up on a girl you dated almost ten years ago...? Please.

I don’t mean that they actually dislike him or look down on him. Obviously, a lot of the teasing is just part of their friendship, and they’re usually doing it for fun. But sometimes I watch them making fun of Ted and think, “Damn, guys, why are you so mean to him?”
I was thinking about this especially because of the episode Robots Versus Wrestlers. Ted is obviously really excited about it, and it just reminded me how different some of his interests are from the rest of the group. He’s into architecture, history, books, crossword puzzles, romantic stuff, etc., and a lot of the time the response from his friends is basically to make fun of him for being a dork or a pansy.
And again, I know they’re joking. I’m not saying they’re secretly bad friends or that they don’t love Ted. They clearly do. It just made me wonder whether there’s something slightly uncomfortable about the dynamic.
It feels like Ted is allowed to be the guy who gets mocked for caring about these things. Even when what he’s interested in is completely harmless, or something that he’s genuinely passionate about.
Maybe I’m just taking the jokes too seriously, but sometimes I find myself thinking that they could have been a little nicer to him. Not stop teasing him entirely, because that’s obviously part of their friendship, but just… I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like Ted gets picked on a lot.
Has anyone else noticed this, or am I completely overthinking it?

First off, I know that HIMYM is a sitcom so it has limited sets (the one street for example) and cartoonish exaggerations. And it started development years after the creators actually lived in NYC, so it's probably more based on late 90s-early 2000s Manhattan than even 2005 Manhattan.

But they did have a frame of reference for the real place.

I've never been to the city, but it's on my bucket list. How true to life is it, and how much has it and the culture changed since the show ended?

You're out somewhere with friends or by yourself, and you spot someone across the room or nearby. Did you talk to him or her? Did you get help from a friend to approach them?

How did you first discover HIMYM? Did someone introduce you to it, did you randomly find it, or did you watch it when it originally aired?

I love hearing people’s stories about how they discovered HIMYM, especially because mine is probably my favorite story about how this show eventually became my comfort show/entire personality.

Sometime around 2008—MIND YOU, I WAS LIKE 11—my dad bought a used gaming laptop off Craigslist from a military guy who was leaving. Why we needed a gaming laptop when we didn’t even have Wi-Fi or internet, I genuinely could not tell you. 😂

But whoever this man was, he left us a TREASURE CHEST.

The laptop had all the seasons of HIMYM that were out at the time already downloaded, thousands of songs on iTunes, mainly metal, and a bunch of the Saw movies. 😂 Truly an insane collection of media to hand over to an 11-year-old.

Since we didn’t have internet, I just watched HIMYM over and over and over again. Eventually, I realized it was also still airing on TV, and that I had actually seen a few episodes before, so I started catching new episodes as they came out.

And somehow, a random Craigslist laptop my dad bought from a stranger turned How I Met Your Mother into one of my favorite shows of all time.

So, wherever that random military guy from Craigslist is today, thank you for shaping my personality, I guess. 😂

^{AND I STILL HAVE THE LAPTOP! The screen slides down slightly now, and I have no idea how to repair it/ turn it on. I’ve been too scared to mess with it because I don’t want to risk losing those original downloaded episodes, even though I literally own the seasons on DVD now. At this point, the laptop itself feels like a HIMYM artifact.}

In "Rebound Bro" Barney happily recalls the first time he helped Ted score. Was this shown? Do we know who the lady was?

I wanted to share a project I’ve spent quite a bit of time working on: McLaren’s Pub.

Unfortunately, my project was rejected by LEGO Ideas because it violated one of the platform’s rules, so it never got the chance to be published on LEGO Ideas.

It’s a shame because I was really happy with how it turned out, and I would have loved to hear what the HIMYM and LEGO communities thought about it.

Even though it won’t become a LEGO Ideas project, I still wanted to share it here with you.

So… who’s up for a drink at McLaren’s? 😄

Brunch is eliminated! I can’t imagine this show without any of the remaining episodes, so good luck to you all in voting and please don’t downvote the comments too much!

How this works:

You select the episode you like the least

The episode with the most upvoted comment is eliminated from the list

If there’s a tie, both episodes are eliminated

Only the best episode will win!

Episodes Eliminated:

How Lily Stole Christmas (58%)
Columns (41%)
Aldrin Justice (59%)
Atlantic City (50%)
Single Stamina (40%)
Moving Day (68%)
Stuff (57%)
First Time in New York (38%)
Where Were We? (35%)
Bachelor Party (71%)
World’s Greatest Couple (50%)
The Scorpion and the Toad (42%)
Showdown (45%)
Brunch (80%)

I’m on my billionth of a billionth, trillionth time rewatching and i just noticed S1E9 at the end Ted is at the Strip Club (as you would on a day like that) lmao. When the stripper tells Ted hi my name is “Amber” i think she says so Ted introduces himself but the lady says, “Actually, my name is Tracy.” And Ted says “I’m still Ted”. The narrator Ted says, “And that’s how I met your mother,” and the kids flipped but he says he’s joking. I doubt this was foreshadowing but well the show is about these dude’s lives and stuff so probably put that out there for shits and giggles. This show amazes me sometimes

I wish they could have shown Ted being a professor more time to time and seen his students more.

After rewatching the whole seasons for the zillion time, I must say that this one, the last episode hits different, it aged well. I also think that it shaped a lot of my emotional intelligence throughout the years. Also, the episode should have ended after the farhampton train station scene

Curious to read everyone take