When the UK premiere of Sex And The City aired, I was a couple of weeks away from turning 14 and had one major preoccupation. It wasn’t the obvious one. Seeing sex on screen was less interesting than watching Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte speaking about sex on screen. They shared everything, from one-night-stand stories to fruit salads. This was what friendship was supposed to look like.
At the time, I was an awkward teen feeling isolated in rural Dorset. My forays into fashion had been ruined by classmates shouting ‘bonjour!’ when I had the audacity to wear a beret on non-uniform day. But if I was patient, I’d move to the big city and find my people. We’d go for cocktails constantly and probably all wear berets.
I never made it to Manhattan, but I moved to London at 22, with all six seasons of SATC committed to memory. Admittedly, I did not go short of cocktails. There was even a beret of sorts – a pink beanie that had to be burned after a friend was sick into it on the night bus. I was having a lovely time – but SATC’s elegant friendship model never quite materialised. Mates came and went. People fell in love, had children and worked 19-hour days. If I was lucky, I could gather three pals who liked each other for a banterous brunch once a year. I thought wistfully of Carrie and co and wondered why my own social life felt like a game of Buckaroo. Everything would stay balanced for a few seconds, then collapse.
So when it was announced that Samantha wouldn’t appear in And Just Like That, I felt strangely vindicated. Officially, she had to be written out because Kim Cattrall declined to take part. (Much has been made of a feud – but who wants to return to the job they had in 2004? If Somerfield tried to get me back into my green fleece, I wouldn’t be keen.) In the AJLY universe, Samantha fell out with the gang when Carrie dropped her as a publicist and promptly moved to London. I loved the character, and I miss her. But for me, that feels much more truthful than a friendship group in which the dynamics remain unchanged for almost 20 years.
We must remember that when it aired, SATC felt radical. Not just because it talked about sex, empowerment, pleasure and women in a new, frank way – but because it was mostly a show about women talking. While the focus was on sex and relationships, the group explored every aspect of their lives together. Importantly, their connection wasn’t always harmonious. Sometimes they judged each other or found each other frustrating. Still, no fight was significant enough to split the group.
For all its flaws, the show could be a positive inspiration, teaching us to treat our friends with significance and respect. It made me feel that friendship was every bit as important as romantic love, and that you couldn’t make one person your everything. It was good to have a crew.
However, as a teenage viewer in the ’90s – and a Spice Girls fan – I crystallised a belief that friendship never ends. Now that I’m 36, I’ve seen plenty fail. There has been the occasional dramatic fight, but mostly it’s a set of moves, motherhood and major career changes that mean our lives simply stop tessellating. Molly-Mae Hague recently revealed that she’s ‘not bothered’ about her social life, and that her circle is ‘absolutely tiny’ – with individual friendships mattering more than being part of a huge gang. This rings true.
Over the last couple of years, I suspect many of us have discovered that our friendship patterns have shifted. We’ve lost some social rituals and found joy in others. Life has been hard, and we have been forced to think about what we genuinely want and need from our friends. For me, that means focusing on quality, not quantity. Choosing an afternoon walk with a friend who makes me laugh and leaving a WhatsApp group where too many people were pasting gloomy news headlines.
Perhaps And Just Like That is so appealing because SATC fans felt like the fifth friend in the group. When it ended, we all felt bereft. I love seeing my ‘old friends’ together again, but I’m not invested in those relationships in the same intense way.
The world has changed. Even Carrie Bradshaw’s perfect social circle has become squeezed and dented. Sometimes, friendship does end, and that’s OK.