This is a stand-alone that I wrote awhile ago. It is basically Chandler's thoughts after TOW The Lesbian Wedding. It is kinda short.
Disclaimer: I don't own them.
He couldn't believe his friends. His so called friends. How could they all pick him to be the last one to get married? All of them. All five of them. Even if that's how they felt, you'd think one of them could pick someone else to be polite. But no, they all had to pick him.
With Joey in the group. Joey! Joey was his best friend in the world and he loved him like a brother, but come on! We're talking about Joey! Dimwitted Joey! Who never managed to hold down a job! Sure acting was a hard trade, but come on, Joey even went to the wrong auditions! Sure Joey got more dates than he did, but Joey never stuck with any one girl for more than a week. Joey was a womanizer. And as Joey had told him, girls told Joey all the time that he wasn't marriage material. And his friends thought Joey would be married ahead of him.
And then there was Ross, another one of his best friends, but the guy's a total geek and everyone knows it. Wasn't he at least cooler than Ross, dino-geek? He used to be known as Ross's cool friend back in college. And yet even Ross had chicks fighting over him! Chandler never had girls fighting over him. He didn't even want them fighting over him, he would settle for one, one decent girl who really liked him. What did Ross have that he didn't?
Was he really that repulsive looking? Maybe he'd have better luck if he took Joey's advice and put a bag over his head. He knew his mother always told him he was gorgeous, but a mother had to think that about her kid. He even made a ton of money, had a huge office with a window, could afford to entertain his dates in style, yet if there was a store that sold wives he was sure the women for sale there would all reject him. After all he was Chandler Bing, woman repeller.
His friends had all reassured him that he wasn't going to turn out like Mr. Heckles, but now he was thinking they must have all been humoring him. They think he's gonna be the last to be married. Would he find anyone crazy enough to want to marry him? Sure he always said he was afraid of commitment, but he knew deep down that when the right girl came along he would commit to her. He wasn't likely to admit it to his friends, but he wanted the family, the white picket fence, the happily ever after, the whole shebang.
Sure he was picky, but didn't he have a right to be? We're talking lifetime commitment here! That's huge. If he was ever going to risk a step that terrifying and life altering, didn't he have the right to not have to settle for a girl who's just a maybe. Maybe he's a dreamer but he wanted perfection. If he ever found a girl willing to marry him, he only planned on doing it once. He didn't want a marriage like his parents had, with all the fighting and arguing and the divorce. If he did it he was gonna do it right, with the right girl. He just hadn't found her yet. She definitely wasn't any of the girls he had ever gone out with. Some nights when he was feeling down, he'd start to worry she didn't exist. Or worse. She existed. She just wouldn't give him the time of day.
He didn't want to be Mr. Heckles. He didn't want to die alone. The thought of being alone forever, of having no one to come home to when he was old and crinkly scared him almost as much as Michael Flatley did in The Lord of the Dance.
He was the only one who didn't have plans that night. Ross had Ben. The girls were off doing something girly that didn't include him. And Joey had a date, as usual. He was all alone in his apartment with a can of beer and his misery. There were already five empty cans on the floor by the foot of his barcalounger. He figured should probably just go out and buy the snake now. Get the inevitable over with. He was terrified that's where he was headed.