'How I Met Your Mother': Relationship advice from Barney (seriously)

So the new, or old, couple upstairs on "How I Met Your Mother" was always "playing the bagpipes."

They must have had Ted's whole "new relationship smugness" thing going on (or Viagra). In the end though, our story wasn't about their bagpiping, it was about Barney bagpiping relationships -- both his with Robin (though she did help) and Marshall's with Lily (though Marshall really helped with that one).

Barney definitely had new relationship smugness at the start of the episode, and that wasn't made better by the fact that he has never been able to see the relationships others have as good ones. Obviously, Barney and Robin (at least partially due to their ways to avoid fights) are closer to breaking up than Marshall and Lily, and no speechifying on Barney's part could ever convince me otherwise. That being said, wasn't Robin's way of avoiding fights just fantastic? (Yes, I still have my crush on her, and no, it's never going to go away.)

Here's thing with Barney though, and it's the reason I love the guy (though not in the way that I love Robin): He had a whole big insane fantasy about how he would treat Lily if he was married to her, and it was utterly crazy but somehow real. There is no way a woman would (or should) respond in the way Barney suggested, and yet one can't help but get the sense that for Barney, they have. Barney is crazy and his actions couldn't possibly work for anyone but himself, but you have to believe that for him they have actually paid off, don't you? Was there some embellishing on Barney's part? Perhaps, but I think that there was more than a kernel of truth there, maybe because of the women he has dated.

Actually, it is almost certainly due to the women he's dated, especially because we found out he and Robin started fighting after their ski trip (Robin not being Barney's typical woman). But, I am impressed the two of them had only been fighting since the ski trip. I would have pegged the issues as starting before that. (Then again, Robin has been getting naked a lot.)

As for those relationship tactics of Barney's, Marshall was a fool, a damn fool, to try any of Barney's ideas on Lily. The problem wasn't that Marshall messed up Barney's lines (though he did), it was that no one but Barney could ever pull off such an argument. How could Marshall have been dumb enough to go back to Lily and try again after failing the first time? He may be a lawyer, but he's kind of a fool.

I am actually quite pleased the episode ended the way it did. If Barney and Robin hadn't started to fight, if they had gone all lovey-dovey on us for an extended period, I would have been really annoyed. I think their relationship can survive reality, and I'm happy it seems headed in a more realistic direction. They may have laughed at the idea that a relationship is more important than winning an argument, but I still think they're headed towards reality.

Odds and ends:

• Best line of the night. Well, it was really a soliloquy, but here's the opening bit, "Son, I've been in a relationship since you had a ponytail and were playing Dave Matthews on your momma's Casio..."
• Wow, Robin and Barney have bagpiped in 83 beds and Barney has a bag of panties labeled "April 2008" in his closet. Good to know.
• Slap bet. Legendary.
• "Smile don't cost nothing, sugar." I'm with Ted, I don't see Ghandi having said that. How about "Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony."

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