It's all HER fault.

Anything after this is Rachael's fault...You'll See

Maybe it’s because we all secretly fear that our significant others will sleep with a copy girl, or maybe it’s because we simply have too much time on our hands, but recently my group of friends (really just my friend Christa and I) have been debating whether or not Ross was in the wrong when he slept with the copy girl while he was on a break with Rachael. It is a subject both polarizing and extremely worthless. Nonetheless, I have decided to argue my points, right here.

It is interesting to me that no one ever argues that Rachael was in the wrong in this situation. I personally attribute this to the hypnotic effects of her hair. Where exactly is the natural colour? How exactly does it...blend. Regardless of her science defying hair, Rachael really comes off like a jerk in the episode. She takes a legitimate concern of Ross’s (that she is spending too much time with Mark) and simply says I don’t want to talk about it, and resorts to “taking a break” rather than working on the relationship. Apparently fighting about the same subject two times is too difficult. Then she decides that she’s spent enough time playing with Ross’s feelings, she wants to get back together. So she gives him a call. First, however, she allows the very guy that her boyfriend (the one she apparently wants to get back together with) is jealous of to come over and comfort her. That’s clever. Next time I get in a fight with my girlfriend about her being jealous of the amount of time I spend eating Jello, I’ll be sure to take a page out of Rachael’s book and organize a Jello eating contest in my girlfriend’s front yard. Can we honestly blame Ross for getting angry when he hears that Mark is the one comforting his girlfriend (if we can call her that at this point, they are “on a break”). Perhaps we should consider what happens if Ross doesn’t get with the copy girl and Rachael gets together with Mark. Rachael would be around the coffee shop with Mark, while Ross would be the idiot, all alone, a jilted copy girl never wanting to see him again. When Ross realizes his mistake, he cannot admit it because he knows that what they both want is to get back together again. This brings us to the concept of “the break”.

If we are to debate what one is allowed to do on a break, we must first define the purpose of said break. My rival, Christa, states that the goal of a break is to “discover if each party would be happier without the other”. Surely Ross’s dating prospects outside of Rachael must figure into this. If Ross cannot get other girls than of course he would be happier with Rachael. Dating is an important part of life, and therefore to fulfill the goal of the break he has to figure out what dating would be like without Rachael. If the goal of the break is the discover whether Ross and Rachael would be happier apart, Rachael shouldn’t be able to guilt Ross for trying to do just that. After all, she was the one who called the break. If she is upset that Ross has found something better than sure, she has a right to be upset. But she blames Ross for the demise of the relationship, when she was the one who called the break, a relationship motion that allows the break to become permenant. Futhermore, when Ross made it clear that he wanted to get back together, Rachael said no. She whined and complained about the situation that she herself had created. Ross didn’t want a break, Rachael did.

Rachael made many mistakes throughout the “break” fiasco. She called a break rather than talking things through, she allowed Mark into her apartment to console her, and she cuts ties on a salvageable relationship. In short, it is the issue of her part in the whole problem that should be debated, not Ross’s. Christa, I win.