When Ross first laid eyes on Rachel Green, he was 18 and she was 16, the same age as his sister, Monica. That moment marked the beginning of a decade of unrequited love. It was the sort of male teen angst that is often ridiculed by those who never suffered from it. Rachel was a very pretty girl. She was also smart. Ross was smitten. Ross longed to find one girl, in his entire life, who was pretty, smart, and loved him. Two out of three ain't bad.
Ross endured the agony of knowing that Rachel Green was growing, learning, and living without him. The great milestones in Rachel's life, like first date, first kiss, first love, and first lover, passed by unseen by Ross. It should have been Ross, Ross, Ross and Ross. In Rachel's maturation, he saw his own life grinding past in futility. Rachel and Monica were lifelong best friends. Year after year, Rachel dangled just out of reach.
At Columbia, Ross met a beautiful blonde engineer who also checked two out of three boxes. But Carol had the potential to hit the trifecta. She and Ross both wanted someone, and she saw in Ross the character that few women that age could recognize. They married shortly after graduating. They were very good to one another. They both expected it to be their one and only marriage. Carol was Ross's very first lover.
Carol began to regret her marriage after around two years, and was definitively set on divorce after three years. Ross and Carol entered relationship counseling. Those tortuous meetings revealed an irreconcilable difference: Carol was a lesbian. She had never had a girl-girl relationship, and so had had difficulty recognizing who she really was.
Ross went through all the stages of grief. After six months of struggle, they were divorced. Carol became a dear friend who knew everything about him. Ross was left with no confidence that he was competent to enter into another relationship. He did very little dating over the next two years, and had no lovers.
After college, Monica and Rachel shared a series of apartments in Manhattan. It was then that Ross became close friends with Rachel. She was like another sister, except for his burning lust for her. Seeing the parade of boyfriends and casual partners that passed through her life was torture for Ross.
Ultimately, it was unsatisfying for Rachel, too. She was now 26. She had always thought she would be happily married by that age. Instead, she had just gotten out of a messy, destructive relationship, and was back at square zero, without a relationship and without the will or self-confidence to enter into a new one.
Rachel Green grew up in Long Island, and identified with New York City from an early age. Once she outgrew her braces and acne, she was a stunner. If Rachel had not been skilled and industrious, she could have gotten by on her looks. She was skilled and industrious, however. She graduated from NYU and used both sides of her brain in her field. She was a buyer for a fashion line.
Rachel had always had her choice of men, but she often made poor choices. Many handsome men lacking in character. She seemed to be drawn to bad boys. She had never had an abusive relationship, at least not a physically abusive one, but that came down to luck. She had dated a couple of men her father's age, one of them married.
With great difficulty, she had just ended a six-month relationship with a dashing man who was manipulative and not interested in a permanent relationship. She took a holiday from romance for a few months. She was cleaning her romantic palate of the sour taste of her failed relationship.
Ross saw, for the first time, room in Rachel's life for him. He wouldn't be a new relationship; he would merely be promoted from friend to boyfriend. For the first time in her life, Rachel Green wanted a mature, safe, reliable relationship. Anybody that knew him would say that Ross Geller was nothing if not mature, safe, and reliable.
Prone to honesty, Ross haplessly wore his heart on his sleeve. Everyone knew he had a huge crush on Rachel Green. So did most men who met Rachel Green. He resolved to tell her his feelings. He would not ask her for a date. They knew each other far too well to call it a date. He would ask her for a relationship. He never got the chance.
Ross loitered nervously near the door that opened onto the balcony of Rachel's apartment. He watched Rachel talk on the phone for what seemed like an eternity. He planned to stroll onto the balcony as soon as Rachel hung up, as if the timing were mere happenstance.
He heard her say the word "goodbye," and he made his move. He strolled onto the balcony, drink in hand, looking conspicuously casual. Just as Rachel was about to hang up her phone, she said, "Oh, wait, one more thing..." and she entered into an entirely new conversation.
