The secret to friendship? Mind your own business

Rob Long is forced to reconsider a long-time relationship when he discovers they have too much in common.

The sitcom Three's Company, from the 1970s, is "retro", according to Hollywood.

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A friend of mine and I broke into the entertainment industry at the same time – roughly 25 years ago – and in the same month. So when that month rolls around, we go out to dinner together to celebrate the “Hollywood birthday” that we share.

My friend is a film producer and I’m a television writer, and because we’re in different fields and our career paths have never crossed, we’ve been able to maintain a solid and lasting friendship. Both of us know each other well enough to be certain that working together, on any kind of project, would spell the end of the good feelings. He’s greedy and vaguely dishonest – he’s a movie producer, after all – and I’m sure I have some small faults, but my ego prohibits me from noticing them.

But when you’ve known someone for so long, at some point you stop noticing the flaws and foibles of the other person and settle in to a familiar and comforting groove. Over the years, our dinners have given us each a chance to celebrate small victories, commiserate over injustices and career reversals and to brag unreservedly about the really big triumphs. Anyone will listen to you complain, but only a true friend will listen to you explain, without humility, just how great you are.

At this year’s dinner, I needed to complain. A script I created had just been rejected by a lot of buyers – longtime readers may assume that this kind of thing happens to me all the time, but it doesn’t and you’ll just have to take my word for it – and I was still feeling a bit stung.

I’ve had scripts not sell, of course. But this time, all of the reasons I usually hear – that the production would be too expensive, that it’s not star-driven enough, that the themes are too controversial – were nowhere in evidence.

“They all think it’s too old-fashioned,” my agent said. “It seems dated to them. Like, from the 1990s.”

The 1990s are now, apparently, ancient history. And though I could see – if absolutely forced – how this particular project may have given off a 1990s sitcom vibe, I still didn’t understand why that was such a crime.

“In the 1990s,” I told my agent, in a hurt tone of voice, “television comedies routinely garnered audiences in the tens of millions. People stayed home to watch certain shows.”

“Yes, I know, but ...”

“They talked about them at work. They watched them together in groups. The television industry was fat and happy and thriving. And you’re telling me that the collective wisdom of the television business is that, whatever we do, let’s not have a repeat of those years?”

My agent, at this point in our relationship, knows enough not to argue with me using the irritating tools of logic and practical thinking. Instead, he wisely went the emotional route. “The script is wonderful,” he said. “But the way the business works now, they want something totally fresh and contemporary.”

He heard the wounded silence on the phone, and attempted to make things better by adding, in a cheerful and upbeat tone of voice: “But they don’t necessarily want someone totally fresh and contemporary, which is why even the places that really didn’t like the script made a point of telling me how much they’d like to work with you. One of them, in fact, wants to meet with you about doing a reboot of the old show Three’s Company.”

“Seriously? But I thought they hated old stuff?” I demanded.

“They hate old stuff,” my agent said. “Old stuff from the 1990s. But that show is, like, from the 1970s. The 1970s aren’t old, they’re retro. Retro they like. Brand new they like. In-the-middle old they don’t like so much.”

“So I’m too old to be young, but not quite old enough to be retro?” I asked.

“Do you want to take the meeting or not?” my agent asked.

After I recounted this tale to my friend at our birthday dinner, he looked pained. “Honestly,” he said, “I read that script too and felt it was a little too old-fashioned. I think I may have been the one who told your agent it was too 1990s.”

My friend is in the movie business. I had no idea he was also reading tele­vision scripts.

“Oh, sure,” he explained. “I had to branch into television a few years ago when the movie business started to dry up. I’ve always sort of hoped we would find a project to work on together.”

He then went on to recount – in excruciating detail – the successes he’s enjoyed getting projects put into production in the television business. I knew our friendship had hit a rough patch when I no longer wanted to sit there, over dinner in an expensive Los Angeles restaurant, and listen to my friend’s happy conversation. We have probably celebrated our last birthday dinner together. Now that we’re in the same business, we have too much in common.

Rob Long is a writer and producer in Hollywood

On Twitter: @rcbl