A PRETTY THOUGHT · CULTURE & PERSONAL ESSAY
On growing older, questionable love stories and the four women I keep coming back to.
I was 19 when I first watched Sex and the City, and I wanted what those four women had.
Not necessarily the men. I wanted the endless brunches, girls’ holidays, conversations about absolutely anything and the reassuring knowledge that, whatever happened, there would always be someone to call.
I had no idea then how often I would return to Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda — or how differently I would come to see them.
At 19, I watched their relationships wondering what would happen next. Years later, knowing exactly what would happen, I found myself wondering why it happened at all.
Over time, Sex and the City became a familiar refuge. After breakups, during lonely weekends or through periods when life felt particularly difficult, I could binge-watch entire seasons in a matter of days.
Their romantic disasters made me laugh when I didn’t particularly feel like laughing. There was comfort in knowing exactly what awaited me: familiar conversations, questionable decisions and four women who could turn almost any emotional catastrophe into a discussion over brunch.
And, as it turns out, there’s some psychology behind that comfort.
In a 2009 study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, researchers Jaye Derrick, Shira Gabriel and Kurt Hugenberg explored social surrogacy. Their findings suggested that favourite television programmes can offer a temporary sense of belonging, particularly when people feel lonely or disconnected.
Which might explain why, after certain breakups, I needed Carrie Bradshaw more than another well-intentioned friend telling me I deserved better.
Not that Carrie was particularly qualified to offer romantic advice.
But comfort wasn’t the only reason I kept returning.
With every rewatch, something shifted. Conversations I once found hilarious became unexpectedly meaningful. Romantic gestures I’d admired began looking questionable. Friendship disagreements I barely noticed at 19 suddenly made perfect sense.
I even caught myself comparing my life with theirs. Was I where I imagined I’d be at their age? Did I still want the same things?
And why was I suddenly beginning to understand Miranda?
And then there was Carrie and Big.
At 19, their relationship had everything that makes a television romance irresistible: chemistry, anticipation, glamorous encounters and that infuriating question of whether they would ever get it right.
Years later, I found myself paying less attention to the chemistry and considerably more attention to the terms and conditions.
Big seemed to want Carrie whenever it suited him. He could be charming, affectionate and wonderfully attentive, provided nobody expected too much consistency. Carrie, meanwhile, wasn’t always particularly good at saying what she wanted. Sometimes I found her exhausting. Other times, I wondered whether she was simply exhausted herself.
And then Big married Natasha.
Ah, yes. The man who couldn’t quite commit to Carrie suddenly discovered a remarkable enthusiasm for marriage.
It’s a storyline that feels uncomfortably familiar beyond television. I’m sure some of us have experienced our own version of it: the man who wasn’t ready for anything serious becoming somebody else’s devoted fiancé.
Apparently, commitment wasn’t entirely out of the question. Just not with Carrie.
At 19, I was interested in whether they’d end up together. Watching again, I was more interested in why Carrie kept returning to a relationship that so often left her questioning where she stood.
It turns out that the suspense of a great love story is considerably more entertaining when you’re watching it than when you’re living it.
Carrie knew Big was complicated. She didn’t need a podcast, an attachment-style quiz or a group chat to tell her.
But recognising the problem was never quite the same as being ready to leave it.
The other women’s ideas about happiness began to look different, too.
Charlotte believed in romance and marriage, Samantha fiercely defended her independence, and Miranda approached life with an enviable certainty about what she wanted.
Yet they were constantly surprised by their own choices. The romantic wasn’t always so conventional, the independent woman wasn’t immune to intimacy, and the practical one didn’t have everything figured out.
At 19, I found their differences entertaining. Years later, I appreciated the contradictions. Life has a habit of making fools of our most confident declarations.
The friendship, meanwhile, was the one love story I never questioned.
Or at least, not at 19.
I was so captivated by the apparent ease of their bond that I barely noticed its contradictions. Four women, four very different personalities, and an almost miraculous ability to be available whenever one of them experienced a romantic catastrophe.
Rewatching the series, though, I began to notice how often everything revolved around Carrie.
Of course, she was the main character, but she also had a remarkable ability to redirect almost any conversation towards her latest romantic crisis.
And yet, I didn’t stop envying their bond.
I started appreciating something different about it.
When I was younger, I was captivated by how much fun they seemed to have together. As I grew older, I noticed how much they tolerated one another’s differences. Charlotte and Samantha could disagree about almost everything. Miranda could be brutally honest. Carrie could be infuriatingly self-absorbed.
Still, they kept coming back.
Their friendship wasn’t the perfect sisterhood I remembered, and I’m not sure it was ever meant to be.
It was messy, occasionally one-sided and sometimes deeply irritating. But it offered something I still find appealing: people who knew one another well enough to disagree without automatically disappearing.
The older I get, the more I appreciate that friendship isn’t just about having people who show up when you need them. It’s also about noticing when they need you.
And unlike television, real friendship doesn’t come with a standing brunch reservation and three available confidantes.
Which, frankly, feels like the greatest fictional element of the entire series.
I’m hardly alone in reassessing these women.
In a 2023 Vogue essay, Riann Phillip questioned the show’s dated attitudes and portrayal of women. Two years later, Daisy Jones explored why younger viewers were embracing Carrie’s imperfections rather than rejecting her because of them.
One person’s insufferable heroine is another person’s painfully relatable mess.
I find that contrast fascinating. The characters haven’t changed, but the people watching them bring entirely different expectations, experiences and tolerances for nonsense.
And, of course, some aspects of Sex and the City haven’t aged particularly gracefully.
Its portrayal of bisexuality and gender identity can be uncomfortable to revisit, while its version of New York somehow manages to overlook much of the city’s diversity.
Then there’s Carrie’s financial situation.
A Manhattan apartment, a designer wardrobe and an impressive restaurant habit on a columnist’s income?
Forget Mr Big. The real mystery was her accountant.
Yet recognising these flaws hasn’t diminished my affection for the series.
I don’t need Carrie to make sensible decisions, Charlotte to have all the answers or Samantha to be fearless. I can appreciate Miranda’s practicality without expecting her to get everything right.
Their contradictions no longer bother me. They’re part of what makes these women interesting.
And that’s the strange pleasure of returning to a familiar story.
You already know the dialogue, the arguments and the endings. What you can’t predict is how you’ll feel about them this time.
The romance that once fascinated you begins to look exhausting. A character you dismissed suddenly becomes the only person making sense. The friendship you envied reveals complications you hadn’t considered before.
Somewhere along the way, those four fictional women became part of my life. They made me laugh through breakups, offered comfort during lonely periods and raised questions that stayed with me long after the television was switched off.
I no longer watch Sex and the City looking for answers. Some of its answers are questionable anyway.
But I still find something of myself in the questions.
At 19, I thought I was watching four women figure out their lives.
Years later, I realised I had been figuring out mine alongside them.
And if I ever find myself feeling lonely on a Saturday evening, I still know four women in Manhattan who will have plenty to say about it.
Even if, these days, I’m not quite so sure I agree with them.
References
Derrick, J. L., Gabriel, S., & Hugenberg, K. (2009). Social surrogacy: How favored television programs provide the experience of belonging. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(2), 352–362.
Phillip, R. (2023). I’m 23 and I Just Watched Sex and the City for the First Time. Here Are My Thoughts. Vogue
Jones, D. (2025). What Does Gen Z See in Carrie Bradshaw?. Vogue.