HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER: SEASON 1
Ted and Victoria — and Long Distance

I’ve been watching a lot of syndicated How I Met Your Mother lately. Probably because between MyTV and Lifetime, there have been a good number of episodes on, and many of them have been from the first season, which is my favorite season of them all. Sure, there are standouts in other seasons, but collectively, I choose season one.

Somehow, though, I blocked out how much of a jerk Ted was around the middle of season on. Everyone remembers Victoria. She was the sweetheart baker that Ted dated who moved off to Germany. In fact, there’s many a fan who still wishes that Victoria had been the mother. They were great together; she was so sweet. And long distance broke them apart.

Or at least, that’s what Ted would have you believe. In retrospect, when Ted insists over and over again that long distance is always a bad idea, we tend to forget that it wasn’t the distance that was the problem. It was actually because Ted couldn’t keep it in his pants.

Sure, it’s hard. Ted says so himself. He started to forget what she looked like and such. He just really wanted to spend time together. But before he got his paranoia on because of her “we’ve got to talk” email, he was ready to hop on a plane to Germany to see her. In other words, it sucks, but it’s doable.

Then again, Ted was never all that great on his end of things anyway. She sent seven care packages his way, while he only forced himself to get his act together and send one (and given how long it takes for things to arrive from other countries, this must have been some long amount of time). He fell asleep on the phone with her. And frankly, he was never open with her about the fact that there were any problems on his end.

But that does not a scummy boyfriend make. Oh no. Instead, he has his “Nothing good ever happens after 2 am” motto and high-tails it to Robin’s for a booty call in the middle of the night. There — THAT is what broke up Victoria and Ted. In other words, the “bad idea” was not the long distance. That sucked, but the real bad idea was cheating on your girlfriend while she was long distance — and on top of that, lying to Robin by saying that you already broke up, so she thinks it’s ok.

It’s almost scary, really. At the time, Ted seems to know that what he did was wrong. But does voiceover Ted know it now?

Poor Victoria. And poor Ted’s kids, who may never try to remain with someone worthwhile, due to their father’s advice that long distance is always a bad idea. No, kids. It’s a bad idea to plan to sleep with someone else while you’re still with a significant other.

Anyway, I really liked Victoria, and Ted really treated her like crap, no matter what she was planning on telling him in the “we’ve got to talk” phone call. So lesson for you all? Long distance, like Ted, sucks. But there are worse ideas out there.