Dating has become a sort of phenomenon. We’re surrounded by choices that used to be only available to those in cities with high populations, but are now available to everyone who has a dating app. We even see larger amounts of women opting out of dating altogether and choosing not to marry.
With the resurgence of Sex and the City, it feels as if everyone has seen the adventures of the four successful New York City women who openly discuss their dating issues as they take on the big city. With the show covering topics such as monogamy, sex, commitment issues, health, and emotional unavailability, it seems these issues mirror what many of us are experiencing in modern dating. This leads us to our question: has dating changed in any way since Sex and the City?
Here are three episodes that strike a familiar chord with the state of modern dating.
Season 1, Episode 6
Let’s first speak of insecurities and communication. In this episode, we see our main character (Carrie) go on her first official date with a guy she’s interested in (Mr. Big). Her suspicions and frustrations relating to Mr. Big being ashamed of her start to rise when he doesn’t introduce her to his friends and takes her to an out-of-the-way restaurant. She becomes so obsessed with the idea that she isn’t “perfect” enough for him, eventually leading to a semi-drunk mental breakdown in his apartment.
When you first start dating someone, it’s natural to want them to think highly of you, yet it can lead to harsh territory when it becomes all you think about. Communication is a trait that has become the bare minimum in healthy dating spaces. We can sympathize with Carrie’s frustrations and can conclude some communication on the issue from both ends would have saved a breakdown from Carrie.
Season 2, Episode 17
This is an episode with many things happening at once. Charlotte gets crabs from a 26-year-old guy, Samantha’s 25-year-old former assistant Nina sabotages her, and Carrie runs into Big and his new 20-something girlfriend, Natasha. The episode is titled “Twenty-Something Girls vs. Thirty-Something Women,” which might give you a sense of what the episode entailed.Â
The main connection we might see here is the false idea of competition between women regarding love, which has been fed to us since the day we were born. Not only did the girls feel their careers were at risk, but also their love lives were leading them to make drastic decisions to pacify the feelings and harsh realities that come with aging as women. The episode highlights heartbreak after heartbreak as these women display feelings of desperation, and Carrie realizes she was asking for commitment from a man who made it seem like it was something he could never give — when in reality, he could.
Season 3, Episode 6
You can’t talk about Sex and the City and its ties to modern dating without talking about sex. We see in this episode that the girls are all questioning their relationships with sex and inadvertently, slightly slut-shaming themselves.
Miranda discovers she has chlamydia and informs her previous sexual partners, Charlotte’s boyfriend calls her degrading names during sex, Samantha is judged by her neighbors for her sex life, and Carrie is impatient to have sex with Aidan who is reluctant to rush the physical aspect of their relationship.
Sex is a topic women have explored throughout history and, unfortunately, demand pleasure from. We all have different experiences with sex and with that comes drastically different individual expectations. Some people have taken to celibacy, while some have opted for the complete opposite. The topic of sex is communicated more as time passes and is an important factor in many relationships. The girls questioning their relationship to sex highlights the ever-growing relationship we all have with it as well as the safety we should practice when we’re active.
All in all, the topics introduced in Sex and the City are vital topics to the current state of dating. Some topics were not introduced as well as they could have but were important to speak about nonetheless. Rest assured, if you’re struggling to find love in 2024, they were struggling in 1998 too.