A lot of us have had those friends in life that are kind of like Barney Stinson if not exactly like him. But instead of being the sleazy, womanizing person that he appears to be in the show a theory has popped up that suggest that Ted was spinning a tale that was less than truthful about Barney and as a result the audience came to see Barney in a much worse light than was necessary. It’s true that throughout the show Barney acts like a jerk a lot of times and doesn’t seem real at certain points. After all he’s got seemingly unlimited funds, wears a suit all the time, and is simply the kind of guy that some folks would cut loose once they reached adulthood since it’s not always that fun to hang around a womanizer unless you’re a bit like him.
The unfortunate part here however is in Ted’s telling. The theory is that Ted is telling his kids that Barney is this terrible person so that they’ll be more understanding when he wants to date their mother. After all this story is being told by Future Ted and therefore he might feel the need to make Barney look as bad as humanly possible so that his kids will think less of him. That’s a rather dirty trick to pull on anyone since it not only destroys a person’s reputation but it also turns people against one another if it works, or it makes the narrator seem like a bitter, arrogant jerk that’s just trying to impose their will in an unconvincing fashion. If the theory is correct then Ted is being more than a little petty since he was one of the several people that hung out with Barney in their younger years and so is just as guilty for allowing the ill behavior to continue to influence his life.
But if you watched the show then you know that Barney did manage to exhibit moments during which he had genuine feelings and wasn’t relegated to just being the guy that wanted to meet and conquer women, but was also struggling with his need to find someone worthwhile to be in his life. Ted’s narration could be a stab at Barney for being such a womanizer but then again it could be pretty accurate and could also be blowing the womanizer portion of his character out of proportion to make himself look better. Let’s face it, Ted is kind of bland when compared to Barney despite the fact that Barney is a bit wild and out of control at times. He’s like the best friend that never wanted to grow up and decided to keep partying long after everyone around him was choosing to settle down and build a life that they felt stable in.
Barney is also the guy however that tends to challenge the stable life and even the institution of marriage at times since his womanizing ways make him seem like the cool guy and the one person that seems to have figured out that just having fun is sometimes a lot easier than having what you really want. He gets to go from one woman to the next and move along when he’s ready to do so without feeling the need to settle down and possibly feel trapped. But again, throughout the show he does struggle with this, as do a lot of people when they realize that the older they get the harder it is to keep moving on from one person to the next without having a single stable person in their life to depend on. Such individuals tend to go either way with their lives since there are some that remain womanizers for as long as they possibly can and find that it’s a life that allows them to be free and unencumbered by anything. Others however finally start to get lonely and want someone there to help them out and share their life with when they come to realize just how lonely a home can feel when they’re by themselves.
Barney did manage to evolve throughout the course of the show and he did show that he was human enough to have a heart when it came to his friends and to other people. He had his own fair share of issues and problems and while he was usually the joker and the guy that didn’t want to settle down he finally came around and was the guy that seemed to want to grow up finally. The theory of Ted telling his kids about how bad Barney was could be real since it would indicate that he was simply trying to make Barney look like a jerk, but the only problem with this is that he would have to be spinning one very complicated web of lies since Barney did eventually come around.
