After making my way through Gilmore Girls, Gossip Girl and 90210 it was about time: I’ve begun watching copious amounts of Sex and The City. It’s funny, feel-good and relatable.  

It’s got everything a comfort TV show needs for me: good fashion, good characters, and a good bit of nostalgia for “simpler” pre-mobile phone times. 

But it brings the age old question: are you a Carrie, a Samantha, a Charlotte or a Miranda? 

It was something I found myself pondering even after just one episode. And as much as I want to be Carrie Bradshaw – the glamorous and iconic newspaper columnist – multiple internet quizzes later I realise I am Charlotte. 

I wasn’t convinced. Isn’t she the boring one? She seems less fun for being romantic, traditional and naive. She’s just the group’s moral compass. 

But just a few episodes later, I find myself becoming a proud Charlotte. 

She seems a hopeless romantic, but she’s full of hope and a dreamer. She’s committed, loyal and likes stability. 

In truth, in her I saw things I don’t like in myself – and in the others I see what I think I need.

I want Miranda’s fierce strength, steadiness, intelligence, and sharpness: measured and strategic, but never cold – she’s certain when speaking her mind.

I want Samantha’s ability to command a room effortlessly, her fearless lack of restraint: she is unapologetic and authentically herself, she fully embraces pleasure, ambition, and pride.

I want Carrie’s openness to new (often uncertain) experiences, her creativity and her effortless style – mixing designer pieces with items true to her. She thrives socially, and she’s magnetic, drawing people in with humor and charm.

I want to be each one of them.

But Charlotte wouldn’t replace who she is. They don’t try to change – they instead challenge and inspire each other because of their striking differences.

It’s easy to be jealous of the show for having a group of girlfriends who go out shopping and drinking and dining together. They’re always on the phone to one another. They have this core group, which during my undergraduate degree I felt I lacked.

I tried to be more sociable – but felt rejected, and still lacked my very own clique. 

I thought I was the problem. I thought I didn’t fit in. I blamed autism, difficulty reading social situations, my different and sometimes blunt communication style, being burned out.

But it’s not just my communication style that’s different – I’m comparing the present to a show that was released in the 90s and early 00s.

We’ve replaced much of how we interact: their brunches, phone calls and nights out instead now replying to Instagram stories, or sharing TikToks in oversized group chats.

When I felt I had no friends, it was never that I was alone.

People were always around – and likely feeling just as separated as me. 

When reaching out to a friend you don’t need to give them a phone call. You don’t even need to communicate verbally: you can just tag them in a post. 

When I don’t know anyone at a house party or society social, I feel vulnerable. I can’t talk to someone, I don’t know what to say – I can’t break through the awkwardness, so I’ll text a friend or go on Instagram. 

When we do gather in person, we each have a phone tethered to our hand.

We are lacking connection –  we’re not hanging out and being present. 

That brings me to the other trick these girls have learned: showing up for one another. They are each other’s first point of call in a crisis. 

In episode 4 of the first series, Carrie rushes to be by Charlotte’s side, even though she was meant to be meeting a man. She gathers the rest of the girls, and they talk about messy feelings, about failed dates, and about sex. 

They will share embarrassing details that instinctively feel like they should stay locked up in your brain. It might not be what you want to say, but it’s what you need to say and you need advice on. That for me is true closeness. If I am running out of money, if I’m having a nervous breakdown, if I hate my new haircut. I want to hide and never see the light of day, 

I don’t want to be vulnerable – but that’s what these girls have perfected.

In your twenties, friends will move to different cities, get partners, or have busy jobs. Life gets in the way and they’re difficult to reach – but that’s when you need to reach them most. 

After a stressful day at work, I want to lie on the sofa and do nothing – but I know my friends will make me feel like myself again.

At the end of the day, this show is a fantastic reminder that life can feel the worst it’s ever been, but eventually it always will keep getting better. 

Turning into an adult, we juggle loneliness, breakups, dating, friendships, careers, money, holidays, societal pressure – We make mistakes and we rush to “get it together before it’s too late”… but life doesn’t end when you turn twenty. 

And life doesn’t end when you turn thirty either… or forty, or fifty.These characters are still figuring it out in their late 30s. 

In the show we see different examples of what it means to be a woman – some married, some not. None of them are more ‘behind’ than the others. They’re single and they’re not always happy, but we see they have the time of their lives too.

We might feel sad and stressed, but we still have joy and adventures. We still have time left.

For Carrie, series one doesn’t start until she’s 32 – so that means in our 20-somethings we’re in some sort of low-budget indie prequel. 

I still have many episodes to go of Sex and The City, and I am so excited to watch them all.

As for me? I can’t wait to see where I end up too.

This is rather Charlotte of me, but I agree with her famous sentiment “maybe we could be each other’s soulmates.”

Soulmate: a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner.

I look around at all my female friends, some single, some dating, and some on the cusp of marriage. They are most definitely a perfect match for me, or rather perfectly unmatched. 

Just like the Sex and The City’s leading ladies – they each have something brilliant which I need a little bit more of in me.  I get to learn different things from each of them. I have the honor of helping them when they need it (even if they are scared to ask for it. I get to give my love to not just one, but many.

To our own Mirandas, Samanthas, Carries, Charlottes – and a future of loving, learning, and growing alongside them.

Image credits: Hannah Foley