Cate's Writer Room

          I know I'm technically fourteen years late to this (oh my God it's been fourteen years) and Stef from The Fosters said something mean about girls who have watched Friends for the first time on Netflix (which just so happens to be my case), but I am ANGRY.

          If you haven't watched Friends yet and are planning on doing so, skip this rant, as it contains spoilers even though mostly everyone knows what happens in the finale. If you honestly don't care about Friends (shame on you), you can skip this one.

          Disclaimer: these are just my opinions and you definitely can disagree with me. If you do and decide to be vocal about it, don't be rude.

RACHEL GREEN SHOULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN OFF THE PLANE.

          I don't even know how to explain how much I HATED this part of the finale. I've never liked Ross and Rachel together and wish they had simply stayed friends (even though, to me, Ross is kind of an unbearable character sometimes and that's the only reason why I don't think I'll rewatch it), but, alas, the finale and pretty much the entire show revolved around the will they or won't they trope for them, so I was stuck with their relationship for ten seasons.

          If they wanted to focus on only one of the main relationships, they could have focused on Monica and Chandler. I know their relationship started a lot later than Ross and Rachel's, but it was built out of mutual support and trust, while Monica and Chandler still kept their individuality as people and as characters. They were Monica and Chandler and had their own plotlines, with Chandler changing jobs and Monica and her restaurant, for example, and their lives certainly did not revolve around each other.

          ROSS AND RACHEL WERE ON A BREAK!!! They weren't broken up—Rachel said they were on a break, and, in my opinion, that meant they needed some time apart from each other WHILE still being in a committed relationship with each other. I'm aware this is controversial and people have different opinions on what 'on a break' means, which results on different opinions regarding whether what Ross did counted as cheating or not, but this is where I stand. They were on a break, they hadn't broken up, and he cheated. The end!

          They suck at communicating with each other. They do! Ross thought Rachel hadn't been clear enough, their argument after she delivers the WE WERE ON A BREAK line was absolutely ridiculous because they kept twisting each other's words, and don't get me started after the proposal mess after she gave birth to Emma. If they just talked about their feelings and their issues, everything could have easily been fixed or attempted to be fixed.

          Whenever they decided they wanted to be with each other all along, it mostly happened when the other was in a relationship (see: Ross and Emily, Ross and Bonnie, that one time Rachel met a guy at the bar and Ross didn't tell her the guy had left a message purely out of spite). If you truly love someone, if you truly respect them, sometimes you have to step back and think that you might not be right for them and want them to be happy. All the times they sabotaged each other's relationships wasn't a way of acting on behalf of Lobster—they were following their own wishes and needs and definitely not respecting each other.

          Then, they got married in Vegas after drinking too much and spent a long time trying to get divorced. Ross' marriages and divorces are a running gag throughout the show ("I, Ross, take thee, Rachel"), but he definitely shouldn't have lied about the divorce papers and it shouldn't have been as enabled as it was. It was always about what Ross wanted and how he felt, because he didn't want to be the guy who got divorced three times, but holy crap dude get a grip!!!!!

          Y'all . . . she should have gone to Paris. Rachel wanted to follow her dreams and live her life the way she wanted to, just so she could be happy instead of having a man dictating everything she should or shouldn't do (see: the male nanny), and getting on that plane would have been a fantastic way of solidifying her character development after ten seasons. If Ross truly cared about her, if Ross truly loved her, he would have let her get on that plane and move on with her life.

          In the end, I think they wanted different things, and there's nothing wrong with that. Rachel wanted success, which was why she wanted to go to Paris and follow her dreams. Ross wanted love, and that's why his relationships seemed to move pretty fast. Their happy endings shouldn't have been squeezed together just to make Ross happy—they should have stayed apart and follow their own dreams instead of settling for second best.

          Long 온라인카지노게임 short, I think there are many reasons why they didn't work and why they shouldn't have ended up together. They lacked stability and support, they wanted different things, they seemed to forget there was a child involved in their lives most of the time, they had their individual problems that weighed down on the relationship, and needed separate happy endings.

          If you want a fun, stable, genuinely good couple, focus on Monica and Chandler. Focus on Phoebe and Mike. Maybe Ross and Rachel would have worked on the short run, but not on the long run.