For the past 10 years, they’ve been there for viewers, coming into their living rooms on Thursday nights and making them laugh, smile — and even cry.

But come the sixth of May, “Friends,” NBC’s perennial hit sitcom, will take its final bow and ride off into the sunset of syndication.

“I absolutely love ‘Friends,’” said Nicole Boyko, a senior from Marietta. “No matter what I’m doing, I always have to see the new episode each week, even if I have to tape it and watch it later. Usually my friends and I get together and watch it.”

“I love seeing the ways Joey reacts to things,” she added.

“My favorite things about it have always been the one-liners and the relationships between the characters,” said Rachel Alsher, a freshman from Marietta.

For many University students, the show’s final season represents the end of a phenomenon with which they grew up.

They have committed countless hours to following the everyday lives of Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler and Ross and will do everything they can to make sure they find themselves in front of a TV screen when 8 p.m. strikes every Thursday night.

“‘Friends’ is a great show,” said Stephanie Conley, a freshman from Marietta. “It’s just plain funny. I’m really sad that it’s going to end soon.”

Although some students live in a world where they wish the show could go on forever, others feel that all good things must come to an end and that taking the show too far may be a bad idea.

“I’m not too sad that this is the last season, because I think the show has run its course,” Alsher said. “It’s still funny, but it’s not the same as it used to be.

“Friends” fanatics do much more than simply watch the show, however. With the rise in DVD popularity, fans can purchase packages containing an entire season’s worth of episodes, along with plenty of bonus footage and behind-the-scenes extras.

“I have all of the DVDs, and I usually watch the show at least once a day,” Boyko said. “I even have the trivia game. I’m very, very sad that it’s all going to be over in a few months. I don’t know what I’m going to do. There won’t be anything left for me to watch.”

Boyko and other fans of “Friends” only have 14 weeks left to watch before the six friends and the countless other characters that come in and out of their lives move on to other things.