A Letter to Carrie Bradshaw
AND JUST LIKE THIS
I used to make video recaps of the Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That, on my Instagram and TikTok, commenting on the show and talking about the absurd behavior of the characters in this iteration of their lives. I no longer do that, as I don’t have time, it was a pain in the ass, and I grew to hate doing so.
However, I have one last thing to contribute to my work in that area—and I made the decision to write this letter after watching Episode 1 of Season 3 last week. Carrie is the worst role model for women of all ages—she always has been—but she’s only grown to be older, not smarter, not wiser, and still gives too many fucks about her old boyfriends. She’s being written by a gay man who hates women (yes, they exist—and it’s even worse when they have the power of the pen), and therefore I feel that there’s no hope for her.
Here’s my letter to Carrie.
A Letter to Carrie Bradshaw as If I Were Her Friend in Real Life
Dear Carrie,
I thought you'd appreciate this particular handwritten letter—not just because it's from me, your dear friend, but because you savor all things analog, and objects so old-school that they're inconvenient to use or even scrounge up in the first place.
I hope that the oak gall ink from my turkey feather quill has dried and hasn't stained your hands. I assume that it's absorbed into the linen rag it's written on, as I did wait one full day before sending it via the newspaper boy. Don't worry, I gave him an extra few pence for this special delivery.
I'll get to the point because my hands are stained writing this and I keep fucking up the calligraphy.
ANYWAY! There's no good way to say to you that I don't want to be friends with you right now. So, I'll just say it.
I DO NOT WANT TO BE FRIENDS
I don't want to be friends with you right now. But I'd like to be friends with you at a later date, maybe in a few years? But only if you do everything that I want you to do at that time. Okay? If you agree to this, do me a favor. Please don't write back to this letter because I would like the whole "not being friends right now" thing to begin the second that you finish reading the last word of my manifesto.
You might feel immediately confronted or affronted reading this. You may be putting a hand to your heart or your mouth. You may have stopped reading and looked up, deep in thought. You may have stopped reading, put the letter down, and picked up your cat, Shoe. You may be lazily pacing now, still holding Shoe but ignoring her at the same time, as you pout. You may be wearing very high heels, walking through your endless Gramercy Park house as though you're in a slow-motion runway fashion show.
If I'm correct and you're upset, this is exactly why I don't want to be friends with you right now. I know that Miranda is the lawyer, but let me make my case. Stay with me here, it's GOOD that you're upset with me for writing you a letter and telling you that I don't want to be friends with you right now, but that I'd like to be friends later, and that you can't write back to me. That's a lot for me to ask, and it's just obnoxious. Which brings me to the question: Why are you letting Aidan treat you this way?
AIDAN NEEDS THERAPY
Before you get all huffy and say that it's because you and he have a deep love and you've known one another for 20 years, stop that. You knew him for 2–3 years? And then you lost touch, as exes do. You moved on. You kissed in Abu Dhabi and then lost touch again, and now you got back together in yet another whirlwind bad decision after his divorce, and you are widowed. The man would not come up to your studio apartment because he's still angry about the relationship(s) you had in that apartment. This man is more than middle-aged. Has he never been to therapy?
First of all, if anyone was so traumatized in that apartment that they should never step foot in it again—it should be you, after Che Diaz (a comedian so bad, given the choice of going to their ‘comedy concerts’ or hitting myself in the face with Gallagher’s watermelon-smashing-mallot, I’d choose the latter) fingered your drunk friend, Miranda, in your kitchen without your consent. You lay in bed, unable to move after hip surgery, leaving you to pee in a Snapple bottle.
You gave Aidan some good times in that studio apartment, in addition to confessing to cheating on him in that apartment, sure—but again, has he not been to therapy to process his past? Is it possible that he could have entered your apartment, used some self-soothing techniques that he learned on YouTube, and expressed his honest feelings that it might take him a while to get comfortable in your place again but he’ll do it for you - because what’s important is that you two are in a good place emotionally? Of course, it’s possible. For a man of quality. It is not possible for Aidan because he’s a man-child incel who most likely believes in the male-lonliness epidemic.
AIDAN IS AN INCEL
I'll admit that Aidan always gave me incel vibes—without the commitment to celibacy—but now that he wants to not see you for five years, and he won't be dating anyone and doesn't want YOU to date anyone either while you wait for him? Okay, now he's gone full incel.
Let me explain his situation to you, on paper, where you can read it. Maybe that will break you out of your spell. Aidan and his wife, Cathy, are divorced. Aidan and his ex-wife share custody of his teenage sons, Tate and Wyatt. When Aidan was visiting you in NYC on his week off from having the boys — and they were safely at Cathy’s in Virginia—his son, Wyatt, snuck out of her house and walked many miles to his dad’s (Aidan) house —also in Virginia. From there, this dumb son stole Aidan's truck and drove drunk, hitting a tree. He wasn't injured, but what he did was dumb and bad. Aidan had to leave you in NYC and go back to Virginia to tend to this. I get that.
WHAT DOES CATHY THINK?
This is where things go off the rails more than a wasted teenager behind the wheel of a pick-up truck. Aidan decided that because his son is a bit troubled, he (not his son, Aidan!) can not be in a romantic relationship. His son is too fucked up. He has to be a dad. But—he doesn't have full custody. His wife will still have the boys two weeks out of the month. So... he literally, legally, cannot be a hands-on dad while the kids are with Cathy. So, he's just going to stare at a wall in his refurbished barn-house in Virginia in case his son crashes a truck through his front door? Aidan could have declined moving in with you and making his sons stay in that Gramercy Park Palace with a woman they do not know, who will most likely PUN them to death. He could have told you that, just for a little while, he needs to do a long-distance relationship until Wyatt stops doing beer bongs. Sigh, but no.
Aidan decided (without allowing you to be part of this decision) that he can't date you at all. No long-distance. He went from agreeing to live with you, and you bought a 5-bedroom, ten million dollar apartment in Gramercy Park—in order to build a life with (although I'd argue around) Aidan and his sons. And this man bails out on you at the last minute.
Okay, that is so huge and yet it's not even the fucking point I'm making.
HE SNAPPED IN YOUR FACE
Aidan decides he can't move in with you in NYC on the weeks that he's not at his house in Virginia. Is his wife not living her life during the weeks that Aidan has the kids? It doesn't seem like it. Is Cathy not partially responsible for how her son escaped her home?
So, Aidan is not moving in now. He'll be living in Virginia full-time until both of his kids are 18. That's five years. You have to wait five years to restart this relationship with him. He snaps his fingers in your face and says that it's going to go by—snap!—"just like that." He asks for (insists on) going "no contact" with you. He doesn't want you to visit him during the weeks of the month that he'll be alone at his house while Cathy has the kids, because he won't be thinking of anyone else but his son. Carrie, that's not healthy! It's this weird co-dependent parenting that probably fucked his son up in the first place! No contact? He doesn’t want to even talk to you during these five years? No phone calls. No texts. He wants you to - and I quote, “Wait for him.” That’s incel for "no sex with anyone else."
And Just Like That - Sex and the City has become Wait Around for a Man and the City.
CARRIE! This is hardly a feminist notion—that you should not wait for a man for five years. You should not wait for a woman for five years. You should not wait for anything for five years. Remember when Samantha wouldn't even wait for a Birkin bag for five years?
FIVE YEARS!??
Carrie, you're 60!! How the hell can you wait five years and act like the rest of the best years of your life are being "wasted" on not actively having romantic love in your life, which is important to you? It would be fine if you chose to de-center men and not date at all for five years—for YOU. All of this waiting is only because Aidan cannot think of any other way to cope with being a father except to do it his way. Jesus! No wonder Cathy left him.
Carrie, call Cathy. Call her and ask her to tell you exactly what Aidan is really like. Ask her to tell you who he has been for the last 20 years. Learn about this man whom you took back into your life. Do you not realize that men don't thrive as they age? Women do. Single, child-free women live the longest in society. Honey, why do you think that is? I don't think that single, child-free women who are waiting for a man for five years are part of that longevity demo.
Why do you trust Aidan anyway? He came back into your life and then bailed! Do you think that at the end of these five years, he's just going to be magically ready to commit to you? There will just be another thing. He'll tell you that his son is having trouble in college, and he has to move into his son's dorm. What if he doesn't contact you at the end of the five years? What if he ghosts you?
How will you not resent him if he does return in five years?
Will he still be able to get it up in five years?
AIDAN IS GASLIGHTING YOU
I think that Aidan is gaslighting you. I think that he's diabolically evil and has been holding a grudge bigger than his forehead. He's fucking with you for cheating on him with Mr. Big and then in the next iteration of your relationship, for wearing your engagement ring on a necklace and not really wanting to get married. I think that he's torturing you just like that time that he slapped you on the ass a little too hard when you were washing your faces together. He was resentful that your landline was ringing off the hook and that Mr. Big was on the line.
Aidan has always been petty, immature, and trying to force his way of life on you, never accepting you for who you are, flaws and all. He made fun of your clothes. He didn’t care when his dog ate your designer shoes. He told you on the first date that you had to quit smoking (on his timeline) in order to get a second date. Remember when he wanted to wait to have sex when you first started dating way back when? He basically was like, "I'll tell you when I'm ready, and when that moment comes, that's when we'll do it." Carrie, he's the worst kind of controlling. The kind that seems 'nice' at first, but really it's pathologically immature.
Carrie, how have you lived this long and experienced so much only to wait for a man for five years? You’ve started sending blank vintage postcards to each other, and you think that's cute! Aidan finally calls you - not to tell you that his plan is stupid and he’s changed his mind - no. He calls you because he’s drunk. He’s drunk and went out to his truck to get some privacy from his sons, who are in his house. He’s drunk while his sons are visiting him? I thought that he had to take seriously that his son Wyatt is a fuck-up? Why is he drunk?
HE JERKED OFF IN A TRUCK
Anyway - he’s drunk in a parked truck and states that he’s breaking his own rule - not because he loves you - but because he is drunk and horny. He licks his hand, shoves it in his pants, and grunts. Grunts, Carrie! He broke the rules of his No Contact not to sweet talk you - but to audibly force his penis on you like he’s Louis CK.
Oh, Carrie, and then when you called Aidan another night, and this time you initiated phone sex, he blew you off because he was in bed with his teenage son Wyatt, who was having a rough night. Why can't he just get that boy a therapist? I bet his son would prefer that—over his patchouli-smelling dad lying in his bed trying to "help" by smothering him one day, and ignoring him the next, drunk and masturbating in a pick-up.
When you're ready to be fun again, to stop centering men and to stop being a pick-me—please feel free to write back. Or just text me. Way easier.
P.S. If you see Anthony and me at brunch—yes, we are talking shit about you.