Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw loved to ask questions to the readers of her New York City newspaper column. While the column itself was fictional, many of the points Bradshaw brought up are relevant to real life love, sex and relationships. So, as the show’s unofficial number one fan, I took it upon myself to answer some of the best ones.
Season 2, Episode 2: Are there still certain things in a relationship one should never say? While it’s important to be as honest and open with your partner as possible, nothing positive can come from, say, bringing up your ex. The same goes for criticism that isn’t constructive.
Season 2, Episode 12: When it comes to relationships, how do you know when enough is enough? When a relationship does more harm than good, enough is enough.
Season 2, Episode 13: Do you have to play games to make a relationship work? This may have been your go-to technique for making him or her want you in high school, but as adults with little time to waste, it has quite the opposite effect. Although it’s easy to get caught up in games, when you treat a relationship as a one, everyone loses.
Season 3, Episode 2: Can there be sex without politics? Not only is sex and exchange of pleasure, it’s an exchange of power. When all is said and done, the ball can only be in one court.
Season 3, Episode 7: Do we need drama to make a relationship work? Do we need excitement to make a relationship work? Of course we do! Drama? No. Don’t confuse one for the other.
Season 3, Episode 8: Is timing everything? For better or for worse, timing is everything—even when it comes to the right person.
Season 3, Episode 9: When it comes to relationships, is it smarter to follow your heart or your head? When it comes to relationships, the smartest move is always to follow your heart, but to take your head with you.
Season 3, Episode 10: Can we have it all? The perfect career, the perfect relationship, the perfect pair of shoes—from afar it all seems so unattainable. But, with a little luck and a lot of hard work, everything will fall into place.
Season 3, Episode 13: No matter how far you travel or how much you run from it, can you really escape your past? No matter how far you travel or how much you run from it, escaping your past is a mental process, not a physical one. If you are not over your past, you will miss it from the other side of the world. But, after you have truly moved on, your past won’t bother you, even if it lives down the street.
Season 3, Episode 18: Could it be that the problem isn’t them [men], but horror of horrors, is it us [women]? Believe it or not, guys aren’t all bad. In fact sometimes, women are the bad guys.
Season 4, Episode 1: Soul mates: reality, or torture device? Both. Our soul mates are real, living, breathing human beings, but finding (and keeping) them can be very, very frustrating.
Season 4, Episode 3: What really defines a relationship? What really defines a relationship is the amount of respect each partner has for the other. Cute pictures on social media or expensive gifts will never change the fact that you’re in an unfulfilling or unhappy relationship.
Season 4, Episode 6: In matters of love, do actions really speak louder than words? When someone says that they love us, or that they’d never do anything to hurt us, of course we want to believe them. But, when their actions repeatedly tell us otherwise, it is at a much greater volume than words could ever speak.
Season 4, Episode 7: Can you ever really forgive if you can’t forget? You can forgive as much as you forget. Meaning, if something your partner did ages ago still bothers you from time to time, it is unlikely that you will be able to fully forgive until you forget about it entirely.
Season 4, Episode 9: When does the art of compromise become compromising? Never compromise who you are, your beliefs or your morals for someone; if he or she truly cares about you, you will never have to give up any of those things. However, every once in a while, you should be willing to sacrifice some of the small things—such as your Friday night plans—for your partner, and your partner should do the same for you.
Season 4, Episode 13: When it comes to relationships, what are we fighting for? Ideally, the answer to this question should be “love” or “companionship” or “happiness.” But, sometimes we fight so much and for too long, that we forget what we’re fighting for. On the other hand, we should never have to fight for our partner’s respect or loyalty.
Season 4, Episode 16: At the end of yet another failed relationship, you have to wonder, what is it all worth? At the end of every failed relationship, we are left with a few happy memories, a few lessons learned, more time for ourselves and a chance to reprioritize just about every aspect of our lives.
Season 4, Episode 18: Can you make a mistake and miss your fate? Carrie Bradshaw answered this question for herself in the very same episode. “Maybe our mistakes are what make our fate. Without them, what would shape our lives? Perhaps, if we never veered off-course, we wouldn’t fall in love, or have babies, or be who we are.”
Season 5, Episode 2: What’s the harm in believing? While there’s no harm in having a little hope, sometimes we get so caught up in our dreams that we forget to wake up and make them a reality.
Season 5: Episode 3: If we know the house always wins, why gamble? Sometimes, the house is on our side.
Season 5, Episode 4: If it is instantly clear that a person, place or even a profession is not for you, is it better to ignore your better judgment and read between the lines, or should you judge a book by its cover? If it is instantly clear, of course you should trust your instincts. However, if it isn’t so clear, it is okay to dabble between the lines for a bit. We never know what could be so right (or so wrong) for us until we experience it first hand.
Season 6, Episode 1: When it comes to finance and dating, why do we keep investing? In both cases we invest because we aim to get out that which we put in.
Season 6, Episode 2: Why is it always something? None one is perfect, everyone makes mistakes and things happen that are beyond our control. It’s Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Season 6, Episode 3: Can you get to a future if your past is present? It may seem obvious, but getting to your future is impossible if your past is present. Your past, when present, is a barrier to your future.
Season 6, Episode 6: Do we need distance to get closer? As much as we hate to be away from the ones we love, even the best relationships need a break from time to time (after all, look at Carrie and Big). Considering circumstances from afar provides a new, more objective perspective, which is beneficial in nearly all situations—not just those pertaining to relationships.
Season 6, Episode 13: When it comes to men, even when we try to keep it light, how do we wind up in the dark? There are so many reasons why we wind up in the dark. Even when we try to keep it light, it is still possible that we develop feelings, or to find ourselves asking questions that forever remain unanswered. The most casual of encounters can confuse the hell out of us if we’re not careful.
Season 6, Episode 14: Have we become romance-intolerant? In a generation whose idea of a date is “Netflix and chill” (I cringed typing this), most of us have in fact become romance-intolerant. That is, the idea of true romance seems so foreign to us, that, consciously or subconsciously, we reject it. Sentimental gestures freak us out so much so, that our natural reaction has become to avoid them.
Season 6, Episode 18: Is it time to stop questioning? If something doesn’t feel right, of course it would be a good idea to reevaluate the situation. But, are there times when we just need to let go of the “what if’s”? Abso-fucking-lutely.