The hit sitcom “Friends” ran from 1994 to 2004. The show follows the six friends: Monica Geller (Courtney Cox), Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston), Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow), Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry), Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc) and Ross Geller (David Schwimmer) on their journeys of love, loss and figuring out adulthood in the big city.

  Today, I will be focusing on David Schwimmer’s character Ross Geller. In an NPR article he was ranked the worst friends character; the reasons the article included were that he was mopey, had a bad temper, said Rachel’s name during his wedding, and hated Susan because she married Carol (his ex.) I want to dive deeper into these behaviors and some other things that aren’t listed before. 

  My biggest issue with Ross is that he was very immature; in the paragraph above I mentioned his resentment towards Susan, Carol’s wife. He was homophobic towards them and didn’t take their relationship seriously. He didn’t like Susan because he’s under the impression that she’s the reason his ex wife is gay, and that she “stole” Carol from him. 

Another thing I would like to point out about Ross is how he’s a terrible brother to Monica. Yes they both have their faults; like in an Bustle article the reporter pointed out how they both dated each other’s best friends, however both of those situations were handled differently. Like when Ross and Rachel finally got together for the first time Monica was nothing but supportive but when he found out about Monica’s relationship with Chandler he was angry. Although he ended up being supportive, there was never a time Monica wasn’t supportive of him and Rachel’s relationship. 

  An additional example of Ross being a terrible brother is how he never defended Monica when people would comment on her weight or when her parents treated her like nothing. He valued being his parents’ favorite more than being her brother. He never defended Monica when people would be mean to her, and some moments felt like he was egging it on. 

 Another thing that makes Ross a terrible character is that he’s a terrible romantic partner. He’s jealous and he can’t handle situations properly. He lacks the ability to take accountability for his actions, something always has to be someone else’s fault. With Ross and Rachel’s break up he refused to take accountability for cheating, although technically they were on a break even though Rachel says they weren’t, he cheated on her because he was under the impression that she was cheating. Rachel was never suspicious with her intentions or even did anything that may have suggested she was cheating; all she did was hangout with her colleague Mark because he was helping her with her job because it was her first job in the fashion industry. Ross got extremely jealous of all the time she was spending with Mark at work and assumed she was cheating on him. 

  Ross Geller has distasteful tendencies like when he wanted to date Rachel’s little sister Jill (Reese Witherspoon), although he called it off when Rachel told him how she felt but it was weird that he even considered it. That’s worse than dating another friend – he wanted to date his ex’s sister. 

  I took a poll with the question, “Who’s the worst friend’s character,”and  the results are: Chandler Bing at 12 percent, Joey Tribbiani at 2 percent, Phoebe Buffay at 10 percent and Rachel Green at 7 percent. Concluding the poll with the Gellers, Monica was at 10 percent and with  59 percent Ross Geller is ruled the worst character in friends by Millbrook students and others that visited the Cat Talk website. 

  Junior Hannah Paulson said, “Ross isn’t the worst character, however he had his moments of being a little whiny. I think he wasn’t as well written as the other characters.” In conclusion David Schwimmer is such an amazing actor   and helped bring the character Ross Geller alive although I find Ross unlikable.  There were times when I did enjoy Ross but the bad outweighed the good.