Distractions
From TOW Monica and Richard are Just Friends
Monica: Yeah well, I ran into Richard.
Ross: So, are you gonna see him again?
Monica: Tomorrow night.
Rachel: Monica, what are you doing?
Chandler: Well, she spent the last six months getting over him, and now she's celebrating that by going on a date with him
Chandler knows Monica loved Richard and Richard loved Monica. He watched it unfold and he had even been happy for her – Monica deserved to be happy. Hell, he and Joey had really liked Richard, mostly because he made Monica happy but also because he was pretty cool for an old guy. Chandler's …thing…for Monica comes and goes, kind of like Seasonal Affective Disorder (or the need to smoke). Sometimes she's his best friend Monica, or Ross's annoying sister Monica. Sometimes (always) she is Monica, the ridiculously beautiful woman he wants kind of like he wants a cigarette (sort of a low-grade, fundamental craving he mostly ignores because cigarettes/Monica are bad for him and because everyone/Monica will be mad at him if he indulges).
Except now he knows that Richard didn't love Monica enough. Richard, with his easygoing charm, his excellent manners, his Jag and his….Richardness…deserves Monica even less than Paul the Wine Guy or Ethan the child or Fun Bobby. His hate for Richard grew with the shadows under Monica's eyes, fed by the tears that soaked into his shirt while he held her and tried to make her laugh with his stories about Joey and Janice's Day of Fun or his stupid jokes about jam.
So the idea that Monica is going to be just friends with Richard is pretty stupid on her part, but he won't stop her (not that he could).
He'll just be there when she needs to cry, he thinks, while he carelessly puts dress shirts with his bowling shirts and scatters his ties around the closet. (Monica likes to organize Chandler when she needs distraction. Chandler generally doesn't mind being organized, at least by Monica. Because when she's done he will know exactly where the ties are that go with the gray suit and the green shirt, which will mean time for more Nintendo before he has to get dressed for work.)