Jennifer Aniston & David Schwimmer confess 'crushing hard' during Season 1 of 'Friends'

"Yeah, the first season, we—I had a major crush on Jen," Schwimmer admitted after Corden posed that it is "inconceivable" that six good-looking and world-famous actors didn't have any off-screen romances.

"It was reciprocal," Aniston added.

"And I think, at some point, we were both crushing hard on each other," Schwimmer continued, "but it was like two ships passing because one of us was always in a relationship. And we never crossed that boundary. You know, we respected that. But we both—"

"Bulls—t," Matt LeBlanc interjected, though he said he was just kidding.

Aniston then picked up the torch: "Honestly, I remember saying one time to David, 'It's gonna be such a bummer if the first time you and I actually kiss is gonna be on national television.' Sure enough, first time we kissed was in that coffee stop. So, we just channeled all our adoration and love for each other into Ross and Rachel."

Maybe not-so-ironically, the plot for the first and second seasons matched the dance Aniston and Schwimmer were doing in real life. 

In the first season, Ross harbored long-unrequited love for Rachel, who was completely oblivious until Chandler (Matthew Perry) let the truth slip in the Season 1 finale. By then, Ross was on his way to China. Season 2 opened with Rachel waiting for Ross at the airport to tell him she loved him, too, but he arrived back home with Julie (Lauren Tom).

It wasn't until the seventh episode of Season 2 when everything aligned:

Of course, that wouldn't be the end of the Ross and Rachel saga. Later in Season 3, Ross cheated on Rachel shortly (very shortly) after they agreed to take a break from their relationship. The famous question was born: Were Ross and Rachel on a break, or did Ross cheat on Rachel? (The cast all agreed that they were on a break during the reunion.)

The iconic fictional couple didn't find true love until the series finale when Rachel decided to get off the plane to Paris and instead live happily ever after in New York with Ross and their daughter, Emma.

During the reunion, Courteney Cox—who played Ross's neurotic sister Monica—said she's actually happy that nothing ever happened with Aniston and Schwimmer because it made for such a tense and palpable moment in the show when Ross and Rachel finally kiss.

"I thought back on the very first year or two, you know, when we had breaks from rehearsal, like, there were moments we would, like, cuddle on the couch," Schwimmer remembered at a separate point as previously unseen footage of exactly what he was describing rolled. "And I'm thinking, how did not everyone know we were crushing on each other."

Perry and Cox confirmed that everybody was, in fact, very aware.

Friends: The Reunion is now streaming on HBO Max.