One of HIMYM's finest examples of its time jumping exploits. As Ted prepares to go on a date with Stella, the doctor who is to remove his "tramp stamp" tattoo, the gang try to persuade him that it is a bad idea. The fact that Stella (who doesn't appear in the episode but is revealed in later episodes to be Scrubs' Sarah Chalke) ends up in a lengthy relationship with Ted that ends in disaster as he is left at the alter for her ex, only adds to the importance of the message his friends are trying to give him via another one of Barney's theories: The Platinum Rule - never, ever, ever "love" thy neighbour. They illustrate their point by relaying to Ted the eight stages of why relationships with someone you see on a regular basis never work out, through each of their own individual experiences. Barney was the first with Wendy the Waitress in 2005, before he tried to stop Marshall and Lily repeating with their neighbours in '06 and finally Robin in '07 with co-anchor Curt Irons. The three stories are all funny for their separate reasons that all fit their character perfectly with Robin giving in because of hockey, Marshall and Lily innocently going along with their clingy neighbours activities and Barney's over-the-top paranoia of believing that Wendy wants to kill him after they break up. The fact that Barney completely overreacted, and therefore almost disproves the entire theory, is called out by everyone but as usual it doesn't deter him from what he views as the truth. Trivia Fact: This was the final episode before the 2007-08 Writer's Guild of America Strike that stopped production for 100 days.
