One of the main traits of Friends’ Monica Geller is her obsession with cleanliness, which was the core of many jokes throughout the series, but what if that obsession was a consequence of her weight loss? Friends followed the lives of a group of six young adults (Monica, Phoebe, Rachel, Chandler, Joey, and Ross) living in New York City and navigating adulthood as best as they could. Over the course of 10 seasons, viewers really got to know these characters, including their backstories and some events that took place years before the series began.
Thanks to some flashbacks, viewers got a glimpse at the characters’ lives before they all became the tight-knit group everyone knows them as. Among the most notable differences between their past selves and the present was that Monica was overweight, which made way for many jokes and situations that referred to Monica’s past eating compulsion. However, a Friends fan noticed that Monica from the past is missing one of the present-day Monica’s defining characteristics: her obsession with cleanliness and organization.
There have been many theories on the series since Friends came to an end in 2004, of which some don’t make any sense, but some others, like the following theory on Monica’s OCD, actually fit with what was shown in the series.
Monica’s Weight Loss Is The Reason Behind Her OCD
As mentioned above, Monica was overweight for years, and lost a big amount of weight in just one year (as seen in the episode “The One With All The Thanksgivings”). It’s never revealed how she achieved this so quickly, but a fan on Reddit has an idea, and it also explains other things that happened to her years later. The theory says that Monica was possibly a test subject for a weight loss drug at fat camp, which although successful, had some intense consequences. That medication could have messed with her hormones pretty badly, developing OCD and causing infertility as well.
The author supports this theory by referring to the episodes “The One That Could Have Been, Part 1” and “Part 2”, in which Monica never lost weight. In them, Monica doesn’t show signs of her obsession with cleaning and organizing everything, and certainly seems more relaxed and happier than the real Monica. This can also explain her insistence on having children, which showed early on in the series when she considered artificial insemination. Out of all Friends theories out there, this is one that is actually possible, more so when remembering that Monica was constantly neglected by her parents – especially her mother – so it wouldn’t be surprising if they let their daughter be experimented on as long as she stopped overeating and lost weight, no matter the consequences of that.
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