Rachel Green has known Ross Gellar forever. She's Monica Gellar's best friend, so of course Ross knows her. The crush begins when Ross develops feelings for her in ninth grade. And as Rachel puts it, "Summer of ninth grade, Ross sees me in a bikini for the first time. The obsession grows." And grows, and grows, and grows. Ross isn't a stalker or anything. He just has a crush that he just never got over. And Rachel is completely oblivious to it.
First, Rachel moves in with Monica when she left the altar at her wedding to Barry, who resembles "Mr. Potato-Head". She realizes that all of her life she's been controlled by her parents, so she wants to gain some independence. Enter Monica Gellar, the best friend she had in Lincoln High School. They re-unite and become best friends all over again. Ross and Rachel re-meet again for the first time too after high school. Ross had just gotten out of his first marriage to Carol, who turned out to be a lesbian. As Ross so eloquently puts it, "She didn't know, how should I?!" At first, he just asks Rachel if it would be okay if they ever went out. Rachel says okay, but nothing really happens.
Later, Ross goes on a business trip to China and he leaves on Rachel's birthday. It's then that she finds out Ross has feelings for her when Chandler accidently lets the cat out of the bag. Rachel realizes she has feelings for him too and goes to meet Ross at the airport when he comes back from China. But unbeknowst of her, he comes back with Julie, his new girlfriend. Rachel is crushed and keeps her mouth shut about her feelings. Julie doesn't stay for long; she and Ross have an argument and they break up.
After that happens, Ross and Rachel hook up and they became boyfriend and girlfriend. Now, stay with me because it gets a little complicated after this: Ross became jealous of Rachel spending so much time with a certain male co-worker. After weeks of arguing about it, they have one huge fight and Rachel tells him that they're on a break. Ross is like "okay, fine, whatever." and he storms out and goes to the bar with Joey and Chandler. Ross meets Chloe, the copy-shop girl there and ends up sleeping with her. The next morning, Rachel calls him up, all ready to get back together with Ross. Somewhere down the line, Rachel finds out from Gunther (the owner of Central Perk) that Ross slept with Chloe. They get into another argument (Ross: We were on a break!!) and break up for good.
When the gang went up to a beach house for a weekend, Rachel wrote an 18 page letter (front and back) and gave it to Ross, who fell asleep reading it. Basically, it said Rachel would get back together with Ross if he took the blame for everything. He wouldn't. They were together for one day and broke up shortly after that. Then when the gang went to Vegas, Rachel and Ross got filthy drunk and ended up getting married in a Vegas Chapel. They got an annulment when they returned to New York. The night Monica/Chandler proposed to Chandler/Monica (does that make sense?), Ross kissed Rachel, but it didn't mean anything. And ever since then, they've been friends.
