Everyone has that one show that engulfs them so much they start to wish they lived in the series. Some might wish they were glammed up in Gossip Girl, while others might just want the humor and closeness that Friends offered. No matter your pick, once you start wishing you lived like that, it throws off your sense of reality… and it sucks.
For me, there is genuinely no place like Tree Hill. Tree Hill, North Carolina: where everyone grows up to be successful, beautiful boys give you epic love monologues, you act 25 when you’re 16, and everyone goes to jail (but end up fine).
I always wondered how did their parents let them live like that? I mean granted Peyton’s dad was always somewhere at sea, Brooke’s parents didn’t care whatsoever, and Haley’s parents let her marry Nathan at 16 years old—enough said. The only sensible one was Karen who watched everyone’s kids in Tree Hill. So without all this parental supervision, the teens go to strip clubs, take limos, get married, steal busses, and create their own club. Who wouldn’t want a club for all ages to get drunk and listen to amazing singers? Literally, Sheryl Crow, Gavin DeGraw, Jimmy Eat World, and Nick Lachey just happen to stroll into a small town of North Carolina for a concert. Don’t even get me started on the whole Pete Wentz thing. These people live the dream. Haley just stops going to school and pauses her marriage to go on tour to become a world famous rock star. She comes back to school as if nothing happened and then wonders why people are looking at her funny. Haley then gets pregnant her senior year and mid valedictorian speech, her water breaks. But everyone loves and respects her for being pregnant.The next season fast-forwards four years later and they’re all rich and successful doing their dream jobs straight out of college. As if the past four seasons of them doing ridiculously fun stuff like Boy Toy auctions, dare night, and those wild cheerleading competitions weren’t enough to make me envious of their lives, they effortlessly get their dream jobs. But even more amazing than this, they’re all alive. There were psycho stalkers, cruel deaths, and twisted secrets. Half the cast dies and comes back to life at some point in the series.
Having watched the show over seven times, you can definitely say I’m obsessed. I just wanted my real life to be like this fantasy. They make it seem so normal, and I felt like I missed out so much in my life watching them parade around their town like adults in high school. But more than this, One Tree Hill ruined my perception of love and relationships.
I mean to be fair, they had a team of writers whip up word choices and actions. But they seriously messed me up. I believed my real life should be just as perfect as that. They made me want to get married at sixteen because you know they worked it out. A love so unconditionally doesn’t seem possible in reality. Ultimately, Tree Hill is a dream come true: defying death, nailing your dream job straight out of college, and finding your partner for life in high school.