Monica Geller privileged, inexperienced childhood best friend Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), with whom she had long lost contact, suddenly arrives in her neighborhood unannounced as a runaway bride after abandoning her own wedding, Monica allows her to move in with her while she attempts to reorganize her life, and the two reconnect. Monica begins dating Dr. Richard Burke (Tom Selleck), an older man who is also one of her father's best friends and 21 years her senior. However, the couple mutually agrees to end their long-running relationship after realizing that Richard does not want children, while Monica aspires to eventually raise a family
Monica Geller several cooking-related jobs throughout the series, having worked at five different restaurants, a trend that nearly coincides with her constant rotation of boyfriends in an ongoing search for the "perfect match". Michael Hogan of "The Guardian" believes that the character's "competitive, perfectionist, obsessive-compulsive nature made her ideally suited to a career as a chef." However, her love of cooking and food is also responsible for her having been extremely overweight as a child, throughout high school and college. The running gag of an overweight Monica is often used as a recurring backstory for the character throughout the series, first explored