Appearances
TOW Phoebe's Ex-Partner
Monica: So umm, how was your date with Ginger?
Chandler: Great. It was great. She's ah, she's great, great looking, great personality, she's greatness.
Monica: Sounds like she's got the ah, whole package.
Chandler: Joey told you about the leg, huh?
Monica: Uh-huh.
Chandler: Oh God, it freaked me out. Okay, I know it shouldn't have, but it did. I mean I like her, I don't want to stop seeing her, but every so often it's like 'Hey, y'know what, where's your leg?' I mean I'm the smallest person in the world aren't I? I'm the smallest person in the world.
Chandler likes Ginger. He does. What's not to like? She's beautiful, she's funny, and she laughs at his jokes. And the leg thing… he's pretty sure it doesn't bother him in anything other than a superficial way. He's gotten better at overlooking superficial things (though he's still not sure he really would have been able to stand a lifetime of Janice's laugh, even if he could have dealt with her fashion sense and her voice). He actually thinks the problem might really be that he's worrying about the possibility of it worrying him, and that's a level of insecurity and navel-gazing that seems dumb even to him.
At least, that's what he was worrying about when he talked to Monica. But somehow talking to Monica made him realize that… it's not that. At least, it's not just that.
He wants (needs) a woman who gets him. Who gets his jokes as soon as he makes them (not a beat later or never): who makes quick eye contact and smirks when Joey says something really dumb, or Phoebe is more than usually esoteric: and who doesn't humor him so much as support him and challenge him simultaneously.
But that woman isn't available, not to him (besides, he's not sure who he'd analyze the date with after the date if he ever got the nerve up to go on a date with Monica if she were crazy enough to accept one. Can you do a post-mortem of a date with your date? And since doing the date post mortem with Monica is part of his dating ritual, would it actually be a date if there was no post game analysis?).
And Chandler likes Ginger, so he made another date with her.
Monica smiled when he told her that. One of those approving, Oh-my-God I'm-so-proud-of-you smiles that makes him wish, briefly, that he could do something (anything) to make her smile at him the way she used to smile at Richard (more of a loving, Oh-my-God-I-think-you're-amazing smiles that Richard seemed to take entirely for granted.)