Friends fans horrified after learning ‘mortifying’ fact about Courteney Cox and David Schwimmer’s ages

If you spent your evening chuckling for the thousandth time at Joey's naivety or Phoebe's quirks, then you're about to have a glass-shatter moment.

Rewatching Friends time and again never fails to bring a bit of comfort.

While we might not be able to control time marching on or life throwing curveballs at us, we can always return to Monica's apartment and watch the gang navigate their 20s and early 30s.

In fact, we're so used to seeing their faces during that period that it can take a second to remember that the stars have actually aged since then.

It's now been 20 years since Friends came to an end in 2004, and Jennifer Aniston - the youngest cast member after the late Matthew Perry - is now 55-years-old, while Lisa Kudrow is 60.

It shouldn't exactly come as a surprise, but that didn't stop fans of the show from feeling uneasy when one internet user shared an eye-opening fact.

Warner Bros. Television

Did you know that Courteney Cox and David Schwimmer, who played iconic siblings Monica and Ross in the show, are now about the same age as their character's parents were when the show began?

Jack and Judy Geller were played by Elliott Gould and Christina Pickles, respectively, for the entirety of the show.

Gould is now 85-years-old while Pickles is 89, meaning that when Friends began in 1994, they were around 55 and 59-years-old.

Unlike in the show, Cox is actually older than her former on-screen sibling and is now 59-years-old.

Schwimmer, meanwhile, is now 57-years-old, actually making him older than Gould would have been when he started playing Ross' dad.

Warner Bros.

The realization that Schwimmer and Cox are now old enough to play their characters' parents has left viewers shocked, with people flooding to share their thoughts after the revelation was shared online.

"Time goes too fast!," one person commented, as another joked: "I don’t need this kind of negativity in my life."

A third added: "No, no, nooooooooo! Where has the time gone?!," while another got more nostalgic as they commented: "We are all getting old , so glad I had my teen/early 20’s with this group of friends."

There's no escaping the fact that the cast members will continue to age in the real world, but as long as the Friends series is available to rewatch, we can live happily knowing we can always return to the safe, predictable, 10-year span of the show.