February is a good month to explore this topic, considering that it is Valentine’s Day on Monday and much of our collective thinking is directed towards the celebration (or search) for love. We all have the need to love and be loved at different times in our lives, but we often get it wrong along the way. What did Sex and the City teach us about failed relationships?
The announcement of the show’s revival made me want to remember the four girlfriends’ footsteps through New York City. This marathon helped me to refresh the story in my mind, and to understand one of the central themes of the series, love relationships, from another point of view.
In real life, relationships can be complicated, but what if we sabotage ourselves? Is this what Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte did? What can they show us about our love relationships?
The girls weren’t always right
Despite what Samantha says, she didn’t always want to be the eternal single lady, sometimes she believed in monogamous love and bet on it. What could have gone wrong, did the lack of communication with Richard make her expect something he didn’t want to give, did the loss of her individuality with Smith put an end to that relationship? Samantha is a strong and independent woman, but especially in these two relationships we saw her struggle, towards the end, with her individuality and her desires, teaching us a great life lesson: we cannot lose ourselves in our partner.
Miranda ran away from Steve on countless occasions. When she was finally in a relationship with an emotionally available, successful and caring man, she decided to walk away from this option and give the father of her child a chance, probably driven by jealousy at seeing Steve with another woman.
For her part, Charlotte lived for a long time with a list of what her ideal man would be, becoming unrealistic. The need to have a family played against Charlotte, making her suffer really bad situations.
Meanwhile, Carrie was upset when Big refused to move forward in the relationship, but she cheated on Aidan even though he did want to take the next step. Aidan probably wasn’t the love of her life and Big was, but does that give Carrie the right to break Aidan’s heart, twice? Carrie was unable to see how the terror of commitment she felt with Aidan was what Mr. Big felt with her. John James Preston and Carrie Bradshaw were definitely made for each other, for better or worse, because they both had similar emotional baggage.
Romanticizing toxic relationships
Unhealthy relationships and emotional abuse are present, and while sometimes in Sex and the City we are taught to escape these, there is also a romanticization of complicated relationships. For many years, Big didn’t treat Carrie seriously, reinforcing the belief that crying and suffering are normal when an epic love is found. However, despite what Carrie and Big’s relationship showed us, true love does not require an endless cycle of breakups and reencounters.
Sex and the City taught us to enjoy the journey and not to feel guilty for not getting a partner in the terms imposed by society. However, it also made us look at ourselves, because the other person is not always the one with the flaws. We cannot expect someone to love us when we do not love ourselves. We cannot idealize someone, because disappointments are harder to overcome. But we also can’t be cynical about love, because then we don’t open ourselves to possibilities.
Labels and criticisms
The show was ahead of its time, with a group of women talking about sex openly. However, on many occasions it had stereotyped scenarios, for instance, when Carrie dated a bisexual man and she (a sex columnist) was shocked and unsympathetic. Carrie was into more vanilla relationships, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but this kind of behavior could have made many viewers feel ashamed of their tastes and choices. It wasn’t nice of Carrie to judge.
Around the time Samantha was in a relationship with a woman, she was also criticized by her friends, making the show not a full reflection of reality and pushing away, in part, people who do not identify as straight. The representation of the LGBTQ+ community was very limited, something they intend to change in And Just Like That.
Learning from the positive and the negative
Human relationships can be complex, and a TV show can’t give us all the answers, but it can make us reflect on what we are doing. Are we demanding more than we give, or are we maybe emotionally unavailable?
Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda taught us not to settle. We can move on if we don’t feel respected, loved or valued in a relationship. However, they were far from perfect; many times the girls were the ones with the problem.
In addition to our feelings for the other person, we must evaluate whether we are in a good position personally. The truth is that we cannot force a connection, no matter if the other person fills all the boxes of perfection we expect. Working on ourselves first will help us start a healthy relationship. In the meantime, having a group of friends (like Samantha, Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte) with whom we can talk openly, without shame, will allow us to find our center.
Image credit: Martamenchini
