Worst Things The Characters On How I Met Your Mother Ever Did

In "How I Met Your Mother," Ted Mosby tells his teenage kids about the adventures and misadventures he and his friends got into as young New Yorkers, and the search for love that ultimately led him to their mother. The show was popular throughout much of its 2005-2013 run and, despite a nearly universally maligned finale that damaged its legacy, remains surprisingly rewatchable. It has memorable characters, hilarious running gags, and more than its fair share of sappy but effective moments of romance and tenderness.

Unfortunately, it's also a product of a bygone era, as evidenced by a laundry list of cruelties the main five characters visited upon each other and those that got caught in their orbit. Many of these things wouldn't fly today, and enough are so egregious that several other terrible things — like Barney sleeping with Robin despite her being Ted's ex, or Ted breaking up with a girl on her birthday, getting back together with her years later, and then doing it again – didn't even make the cut. So what did? Read on to find out: These are the worst things the main characters on "How I Met Your Mother" ever did. Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD.

In season 4, Barney's friends suspect he's in a committed relationship. They follow him to a house in Staten Island, where they discover the place is actually owned by Barney's mom, Loretta. Then, shockingly, they're all joined by Barney's wife and son. For a minute, it really does seem like Barney has been leading a double life this whole time.

The truth ends up being a little less bizarre (but only a little). Turns out, Barney doesn't only lie to women he wants to sleep with: He's also been lying to his mother for years. A few years earlier, she got sick and it looked like she wasn't going to pull through. So Barney hired actors to play his wife and son, wanting his mom to pass away believing her son had finally settled down with a woman he loved. When Loretta beat the odds and pulled through, Barney decided to keep up the ruse, making semi-regular visits to his mom's house alongside his fake family ever since.

He comes clean by the end of the episode, and it all works out because Loretta hated his "wife" and "son" anyway, but still. Only a sick mind would even think about deceiving their own mother like that, even if they did it for nice reasons.

Ted Mosby is a funny, good-looking, successful young guy living in New York City. If he had a healthier relationship with women, he might've realized his dream of getting married well before he hit his mid-30s. Unfortunately, he's so in love with the idea of being in love that he frequently ends up with the wrong women for far too long, even when they try to turn him down. This is a sitcom, so grand romantic gestures are par for the course. But some of the things Ted pulls are over the line.

Infamously, Ted repeatedly pressures Robin into dating despite knowing full well she doesn't want to. In another episode, he takes Stella Zinman on a "two-minute date" in which they chat, have a bite to eat, and watch a short film in 120 seconds. Sounds cute, but he only does this because Stella repeatedly tries to articulate to him that she has no time to date. Ted pushes and essentially strong-arms her into a relationship ... that results in his being left at the altar. Maybe he doesn't deserve that, but he does need to be taught a lesson that sometimes, women aren't playing hard to get: No simply means no.

Almost as problematic as Barney's terrible behavior is that the show, and Barney's friends — both of which seem to be at least somewhat aware that his actions are often completely unacceptable — treat it like a silly joke. "There goes that scamp again, filming women without their consent!" instead of, "Barney films women without their consent. I'm calling the police."

They roll their eyes when he recounts the (usually embellished) tales of his latest sexual conquest, or make silly, light-hearted jokes at his expense. Sometimes they will actually confront him, but never intensely enough. For example, Lily briefly lays into Barney for continuing to lie to women for sex, but only because she knows he loves Robin and wants him to stop ... for his sake. Not for the sake of the poor girl who only slept with him because she thinks he plays for the Yankees.

On multiple other occasions, Barney's friends play wingman and actively help him seduce women at bars. Wingman culture is problematic enough as it is, but given the fact that they know full well that Barney is a sex predator who lies, manipulates, and treats consent like a joke, it makes their involvement even worse.

The entire framing story for "How I Met Your Mother" is an older Ted Mosby, voiced by Bob Saget, telling his high school-aged kids about his adventures as a young New Yorker looking for love. It sounds charming, and it often is, but some of the stories he tells are wildly inappropriate for a dad to share with his kids, especially while they're still underage.

As we see over the course of the show, and as evidenced by the existence of this very article, Ted and his friends did a lot of regrettable things. And along with Barney and Robin, Ted seems to have slept with almost half the city, and tells his kids about these sexual conquests that have questionable relevance to the titular story of how he met their mother. On top of that, Ted talks about getting blackout drunk on multiple occasions, cheating on girlfriends, hitting on married women, getting tramp stamps, Aunt Lily and Uncle Marshall's ravenous sexual appetite for each other, and how Uncle Barney once had a perfect week by nailing a different girl every night for seven days straight. Ted often seems oblivious to how inappropriate his behavior is, but some of this stuff should be obvious.

It would've made a lot more sense to just say, "I met your mom at Uncle Barney and Aunt Robin's wedding and we hit it off. Now go brush your teeth."

In one episode while Ted is living with Robin, he comes home to find a naked man named Mitch, who'd just been on a date with Robin, sitting on his couch. After the initial shock wears off, Ted asks Mitch what in God's name he's doing there. Mitch explains that this strange tactic, known as "the Naked Man," involves him being invited into a woman's apartment after a date, stripping down to his birthday suit while she's out of the room, and hoping she'll be so amused by his boldness that she agrees to sleep with him. He further explains that it's the only way a schlub like him can reliably sleep with women, and that it works two thirds of the time.

Ted then explains this to the gang, and everyone tries it. Lily ends a fight with Marshall by getting naked, which is fine since they're already in a relationship. But Ted and Barney both try this with different women they barely know. It works for Ted, but Barney gets thrown out of the terrified woman's apartment. See? Two out of three times.

Okay, do we really need to explain why you can't just get naked in someone's house unless you know for a fact they'll be okay with it? Consent is important, folks, so don't try this at home. Or anyone else's.

Other than almost exclusively wearing suits and having goofy catchphrases, Barney's defining characteristic is that he habitually manipulates women into bed using schemes detailed in his "Playbook." It makes for some pretty entertaining TV, especially when he dons various costumes or builds entire websites to support his lie of being "Lorenzo Von Matterhorn," an impossibly accomplished fake character he invented to impress women.

But many of the things Barney casually admits to doing for sex are beyond unacceptable to the nth degree of infinity. He once told a woman he was a genie whose genitals could grant wishes if rubbed hard enough. He sometimes goes to the Empire State Building and tells women standing alone that "he's not coming," hoping they're waiting for a star-crossed lover and that he can take her to bed instead. He once sold a woman into slavery, for God's sake. In one episode, the gang makes a bracket of 64 of Barney's sexual conquests to determine which woman was the most mistreated. Here we learn Barney once pretended he had 12 hours to live, posed as various wealthy entrepreneurs, and faked being his own evil twin so he could sleep with a girl twice.

Even in this fictional world, Barney's treating consent like a joke and lying to get women into bed ranges from cruel to legitimately illegal. Suffice to say, no sitcom would dare try to pull off half of his jokes in today's television.