These Are The Only Friends Characters Who Haven't Kissed On Screen
"Friends" was known for its cast of six New York-based besties, but many of them were more than "friendly" with one another. From 1994 to 2004, Rachel Greene (Jennifer Aniston), Monica Geller (Courteney Cox), Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow), Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry), Ross Geller (David Schwimmer), and Joey Tribbiani (Matt Le Blanc), not only hung out together at Central Perk and their apartments but, at some point, nearly all of the characters exchanged lip locks with one another.
Fans of the long-running NBC sitcom know that pretty much every combination of these impossibly attractive friends planted a kiss on everyone in their group. The Ross and Rachel romance went on or years -– yes, they were on a "break" at one point, but they were "friendly" enough to later have a baby together –- and Chandler and Monica turned a London hookup into a real relationship that ended in marriage.
In addition to the established couples, there were some unlikely pairings on "Friends" that played out in fantasy sequences. In the 1996 episode "The One With the Flashback," viewers were stunned to see several unexpected couplings. The episode, which featured flashbacks to three years prior when several of the friends almost slept together, was used as a test for a couple that had not previously been linked, according to Fandom. But viewers weren't fans of seeing Phoebe and Ross kissing, or Monica and Joey together, or Rachel and Chandler as a duo, so nothing went further in future-set scenes.
Even with these "what if" scenarios, there are still two characters that never kissed a single time on "Friends."
There are only two Friends who never kissed each other
The writers may have put the kibosh on some of the group's hookups, but it wasn't for lack of trying by at least two of the stars on the series. According to Cosmopolitan, series star Matt LeBlanc heavily pitched for a secret "friends with benefits" scenario for his character and Lisa Kudrow's Phoebe. LeBlanc and Kudrow came up with the potential idea to re-film classic scenes to reveal clues that the two pals had actually been secretly having "casual sex" for the entire run of the series.
The wild story idea never made it past the pitching stage because the writers weren't in love with the concept, but they did go on to utilize the secret romance idea for Chandler and Monica, who first hooked up at Ross' wedding in London and kept their romance a secret from their group for as long as they could. With the Phoebe idea scrapped, Joey later had an almost-romance with Rachel, breaking every rule in the Bro Code handbook by kissing Ross' ex.
In the end, the only two Friends to have never shared an onscreen kiss — either in regular episodes or in fantasy sequences – were Monica and Phoebe, according to Factinate. That's a potentially winning combination left on the table.