The Proposal Of Chandler

Monica: Chandler.... In all my life... I never thought I would be so lucky. (Starting to cry.) As to...fall in love with my best...my best... There's a reason why girls don't do this!

Chandler: Okay! (He joins her on one knee) Okay! Okay! Oh God, I thought... (Starting to cry, pauses) Wait a minute, I-I can do this. (Pause) I thought that it mattered what I said or where I said it. Then I realized the only thing that matters is that you, (Pause) you make me happier than I ever thought I could be. (Starting to cry again.) And if you'll let me, I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you feel the same way. (Pause as he gets out the ring.) Monica, will you marry me?

Monica: Yes.

I stayed up until 2 a.m. to see Chandler putting the ring on Monica's finger.

At that very moment, I feel like crying, too.

They finally get together after so much of difficulty, failures and self-contempt. We remember the time when Chandler feared that he would die lonely and unloved when one of his neighbors died. We remember the days when Monica's confidence was greatly crippled for her weight. We remember the scene that Monica said she's gonna die an old maid and Chandler said, "If worst comes to worst, I'll be your boyfriend." In fact, they're not inferior in any means. The have their drawbacks, but who hasn't anyway? The only problem is that they're way too unlucky, and the unluckiness, the fact of "Love life's D.O.A." can eat into one's confidence like HCl eats into limestone. If it's part of their problem, it's their "ability of hooking up girls/guys". They're not especially handsome/pretty, not especially strong/slender, and have no weapon as powerful as "How you doing". They (especially Chandler) are therefore always being taunted by other friends. However, they turn out to be the two out of the six who got the first marriage lasting to the end of the whole series. This is so encouraging to all those being unlucky in relationship (including, as you all know, me). We will never give up hope when we fail in chasing girls.

They successfully walked the way from close friends to lovers and finally to husband and wife. In most of the cases in Friends, as in most of the cases in reality, lovers, when they began to fall in love with one another, have not much "friendship". They either have the crush on their first glimpse and decide to be lovers, or one fall in love with the other and begin all the chasing thing without much base of friendship. Some of us even come up with such excuse like "We're too acquainted to each other so I think we shouldn't be together." Some of us fear the chased one to know too much about his/her history and drawbacks, thinking it'll definitely have an negative effect. However, the story between Chan and Mon is a subversion to all those craps. They knew each other since 1987 and became close friends since 1994, and before they become lovers by 1998, they've been best friends for more than four years. They knew almost all the teeny tiny details and secrets of each other's present as well as history. And, based on such friendship, they developed such great relationship resulted in such immortal marriage, this is indeed great. It has a very small probability of happening, but once such thing happens, it can give great shock to ones as "skillful" in hooking-up affairs as Joey. (He was so shocked that he asked Rachel whether they can be lovers "as Chan and Mon".) Friendship hasn't been an obstacle to their relationship as lovers, instead, it made their love much more stable and colorful. When Monica taught Chandler about foreplay when he was with Katherine, who knows she will end up enjoying it herself?

Opposite to "R2", the relationship between Chandler and Monica is supposed to be "perfect". They're in every way suitable to each other. They have almost no problem to each other's drawbacks. Their actual view to marriage is similar (comparing to Joey). Even their shared problem with reproduction seems to make them so suitable, or there will be another family that have to adopt children.

Hence, it's supposed to have this shocking effect, and it's supposed to become part of the dreams of those who are about the age to marry, even of those who are about the age to love, such like me.