Plus, there are things to be learned from Sex and the City: that your most valuable asset is your adopted family of friends, that money is nice but it isn't everything, that adaptability is key to happiness, and on and on. One SATC lesson that occurred to me lately isn't what I would call an overt theme in the show, but more of a latent truth about life that translates to the SATC story line. Over the course of the show's six seasons, I noticed that (with the exception of Samantha), the girls tend to date just one person at a time -- all for various periods of time and with varying levels of success, to be sure. But, really, it is rare that any one of them is jumping from man to man or dating multiple men at once (again, with the exception of Samantha, who even settles into her own monogamous relationship by the final seasons).
At first, they didn't. Very early episodes (beginning with the pilot) seem to embrace the skittishness of dating in NYC, and even some later ones throw in a random one-off or two. But, as the seasons wore on and the show moved from the attract-viewership mode to the keep-viewership mode, the dating MO of the characters shifted. My theory on why: because aside from the obvious joke presented by the A.D.D. method of dating, there really is no story there. Viewers need to be drawn into the drama, get to know and connect with the characters, and feel that the plot of the series goes someplace meaningful.
And, we crave in our own lives the same sense of story we crave in SATC. Each person you date is special and unique in one way or another, but individual connection loses some of its impact when it is just a drop in a pond during a monsoon. The fate of the expanding ripples created by that single raindrop is lost to the fury of the storm. The business of dating is just like learning a skill, starting a career, or taking on a hobby -- most of the satisfaction comes from getting better at it and seeing where it takes you. In dating, yes, you've got to run the gamut a bit to sort through your options, but that is only a meaningful process if it leads somewhere. If it doesn't, eventually, it starts to feel a little hollow (leaving a lot of room for malcontentment).
"I'll meet tons of girls," he explained to me, "who will all turn out to be some variation on awesome. And, I could go from one kind of awesome to another forever like that. So, I realized that, if I wanted something of substance, I would just have to choose." So, choose he did. And, now, despite all of the other flavors of awesome he encounters, B focuses on appreciating the awesome that is his girlfriend. And, by his own admission, he is happy. One day, if all goes well, I have a suspicion that he will be so sold on her brand of awesome, that all of the other awesomes will start to seem a little less awesome.
It's just as true in real life as it is on Sex and the City: Dating a parade of suitors can be an adventure. It's what attracts people to singlehood in New York. But, it is a cycle that becomes familiar after a while, and then wearisome, and then numbing. At that point, instead of losing viewers, however, we begin to lose ourselves.
Great. Now that we've figured that out, the question becomes: how exactly does one decide to choose? That one is going to take a little more figuring out for me. It's been so long since I actually made that choice (or since anyone made it in regard to me) that I sometimes forget what it feels like. But, I can objectively see that it happens. So, it can't be impossible.
Even then, there is no guarantee that the path (or person) you choose will get you anywhere that you want to go. But, avoiding failure is also avoiding success. As a writer, I know that I'll start a hundred stories or blog posts or poems that I am bound to never finish. But, I sit down to write them anyway, knowing that, in terms of endings, all I really need is just one.
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In the meantime, here are some places that the girls didn't go in Sex and the City that they probably should have:
The Pink Pony
It's a coffee shop. No, it's a diner. No, it's a bar. Ok, so it has sort of an identity crisis. Actually, according to the staff, it's "transitioning it's image." Whatever. It's cute in a French-countryside-meets-hipster-cool kind of way. The vibe is relaxed, the pace is slow, and the place is generally inviting. The food is just ok (my goat cheese and beet salad had way too many beets and not enough cheese to match) and the coffee was middle of the road but flowed freely.
Roebling St. at Metropolitan St. (Brooklyn)
Picture a warehouse made over just enough to be functional as a gathering place, and there you go. Another place that has simply decided to change with the times...of day. Coffee and tea in the morning to a substantial food menu during the day to a bar with the basics and some decent beers on tap in the evening. It's in Williamsburgh, so the atmosphere leans towards hip rather than trendy, which is a distinction rarely made, but worth noting.
Hudson St. between W. 10th and Charles Sts.
Formerly known by its full name: the Cowgirl Hall of Fame, Cowgirl is Tex-Mex with a feminine twist. It's true they have a fair amount of memorabilia, cow print, and things made out of animal horns, but it's more of a restaurant/bar than a legit museum (just in case you had gotten your hopes up). I came here for the food months ago -- and it was good, especially if you like things made with corn. But, I came here for the margaritas only recently, and found myself wishing that I had sampled them the first time around. I might have come back sooner.
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