I don’t know about you, but I have dated many a Mr Big in my time. They may not have been high-powered businessmen with bushy eyebrows that live in Manhattan, but the similarities were there. Much like Carrie Bradshaw’s character in Sex and the City (SATC), I had a penchant for men who treated me badly. Men who were hot and cold, commitmentphobic and occasionally downright cruel. Men whose whole brand was built on the idea that they don’t owe you anything — and that you should feel gratitude for their time and attention.
And so in my youth, when voraciously devouring episodes of SATC, like many others, I was rooting for Carrie and Big, rather than calling out what I now know to be huge red flags in their relationship. I remember watching the Paris episode at the show’s finale after school on a Friday night aged 16 and positively buzzing when the two finally scored what I considered at the time a happy ending. They were together! End of story. Happily ever after, etc etc.
But were they really? When we caught up with them a few years later in the first movie, their neat little happy ending was unwound once more, with Big standing Carrie up on their wedding day. Nice. And though they eventually found their way back to one another with the help of some corny love poetry written by men other than Big, as an older (and a little wiser) viewer by this point, I thought — hang on, how many chances does this guy get?
In the second film there was yet more drama between them. By now this relationship had taken Carrie from her thirties into her forties, and I — going through the ageing process at the same time — struggled to see why Carrie hadn't called time on Big’s BS. She is a smart, successful career woman with all the privileges a person can have, so why on earth does she let this man introduce such turbulence into her life?
And so, it’s not an understatement to say I screamed with joy when I read the leaked script for the hotly anticipated HBO Max SATC reboot, called And Just Like That….If the leak turns out to be true, then Carrie and Big have finally parted ways. Thank god for that!
You see I, like many others, rewatched SATC during one of the lockdowns (I forget which), and my 33 year old post-therapy brain was much (much) less impressed by Big and Carrie’s dynamic than it had been on first view. In those days I would happily ingest the narrative that love and romance are painful and dramatic or that the more destined you are for one another, the more difficult things are. Blame it on Hollywood, or on literature….blame it on SATC. I went out into the world with rose-tinted glasses so effective that they made red flags look pink. When I had emotionally difficult relationships that required far too much attention than I could reasonably give them without failing at work or pissing off friends…. I chose to fail at work and piss off friends. Good enough for Carrie? Good enough for me. Because this was love wasn’t it? This was what I’d learned to expect, rather than a series of HUGE warning signs I continued to ignore that told me to get out as quickly as my legs could carry me.
I learned the hard way that a good relationship doesn’t sit in the foreground of your life, requiring constant attention, and huge surges of passion and emotional crashes. It’s much more nurturing and calming — and willing to sit in the background rather than demand all of your attention all of the time.
And so without knowing any detail on the split if it truly does happen, I am glad Carrie has finally seen the light. I know I have certainly learned a lot from her mistakes over the years, so I’m pleased to know that she has too.
It also makes me more optimistic about the series and its portrayal of singleness. For all its faults, through the character of Samantha (who I’m devastated won’t be returning to the show) we saw someone who embraced single life and didn’t treat it as the uncomfortable in-between phase you suffer through while waiting to find the One. Instead she was having the time of her life, rejecting traditional notions of relationships and motherhood that so often burden women of a certain age, and living life on her own terms. Even now, it’s refreshing to see a woman in her thirties or forties (otherwise known as the time we’re all supposed to give up our freedom and start a family) with such an approach to life represented on screen — so I can’t imagine how groundbreaking her character was in the 90s.
I hope Carrie has learned that no relationship should consume you so much or make you as sad as Big has made her over the years, because let’s face it, that man is toxic. I hope she finds freedom on her own and comes to the understanding that I and so many amazing women around me have come to, which is that no relationship is worth more than your peace of mind.
It’s a hard lesson, but one that comes with emotional maturity. It’s a nice thought to imagine that while the cameras have been switched off, Carrie has been going through her own awakening and realising that she is enough on her own. I certainly hope so, because that’s exactly the kind of female role model we need more of on screen.