Thoughts on HIMYM Part 2: Why the show's length makes sense

The most common complaint I've seen about How I Met Your Mother is that it's taking to long with actually meeting the Mother.  Now, I can understand that a lot of people think that since it's a foregone conclusion, they should just get on with it.  But when you step back and look at the whole picture, you start to realize that something Ted said in season 3 is very true: this isn't just about how he met the mother, it's also about how he became the person he needed to be to meet and fall in love with the Mother.  However, I'll one-up this by presenting an argument I haven't seen before, though I'm sure has been pointed out by someone before me somewhere.  The show's also about how Barney became the man he needed to be to meet the mother.

If you take a look at the early seasons, you can tell that Ted's the main character, and Barney's the goofy sidekick.  But as it goes on, Barney becomes more and more prominent in the story, to the point where he and Ted are practically deutagonists.  This is because Barney's growth was what ultimately lead him to marrying Robin, throwing the wedding where Ted finally met the Mother.  And, beyond that, the stories of how Barney and Ted met the love of their lives are inexorably linked.

!!!WARNING!!! SPOILERS TO SEASON 9 EPISODE PLATONISH BELOW!!!
!!!READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

If it weren't for Ted seeing Robin and falling in love with her at first sight, she and Barney would never have met.  That's a given, but the episode mentioned in the above spoiler warning (and if you seriously don't want spoilers, stop reading NOW!  Yes, NOW!!!) revealed that right between Splitsville and The Stamp Tramp, Barney tried to hook up with the Mother, failed, and was convinced by her to try to win Robin back in the most grand way possible.  Thus, the genesis of 'The Robin' play.  So both Ted and the Mother had a large role in causing their own meeting to take place, and Barney and Robin were also a large part of that process.

So yes, you could simply have Ted say "We met at your Uncle Barney and Aunt Robin's wedding", but here's the thing.  That may be quicker, but that's not really the story the show is trying to tell.  This is really a story about two things: first, the growth of two men who become better people in their quest for true love, and second, that sometimes when you think your life is going one direction, little things that you may not even notice can actually be leading you to somewhere even better than the place you thought you were going.  And believe it our not, that last part is also the story of how my Dad met my Mother.