Love, Dating, and Writing

A Tribute to Carrie Bradshaw

In 1998, when Sex and the City premiered around the world, I was a student living out my university days in the sleepy town of Bathurst, Australia. Between attending lectures, working on group projects, and exploring Australian culture and lifestyle, I didn’t get a chance to watch the show – nor did I experience FOMO at that time.

Two years later, back in Malaysia, I got the chance to watch the comedy-drama series for the first time, and I was hooked. I knew from the moment I heard Sarah Jessica Parker’s voice-over that the show was going to change my life in more ways than one.

And I was right.

Never before had four single, beautiful, career-driven women in their 30s with different personalities shared their experiences in dating, sex, and life with this much honesty and openness. Viewers immersed themselves in the world of Carrie Bradshaw, Samantha Jones, Charlotte York, and Miranda Hobbes, as they navigated their lives in The Big Apple. Armed with amazing outfits and their diverse perspectives, the awesome foursome took us on a journey we never wanted to end.

With no birds-and-the-bees talk from my Indian Boomer parents and no older sister to fill me in on the details, I learnt a lot about dating, relationships and well, life…from the four of them.

Never mind that I was living my 20s in bustling Kuala Lumpur, a city different from cosmopolitan New York in many ways. Yet, I always found similarities between my dating dilemmas and theirs. I took comfort in knowing that the main protagonists – based on real-life friends of author Candace Bushnell, had their own share of misadventures in their love lives.

Together, the friends also gave luxury brands a chance to shine on the small screen, including Chanel, Manolo Blahnik, and Fendi. While I didn’t share their passion for designer clothes or heels, I still enjoyed their diverse styles and discovered a few designer bags to my liking. I loved many of the dresses Carrie and Charlotte wore, and would always look out for similar outfits when I went shopping — a tough job for a plus-size girl in KL.

And then came Carrie with her questions about life, and her column, and all that writing she did on her Apple PowerBook G3. She made me revisit the writing dreams I had as a teenager.

I confess, I wasn’t like Carrie Bradshaw in most ways. I didn’t share her passion for heels or designer brands. I certainly wasn’t as fashionable as she was, nor did I have as much luck with dating as she did.

But when it came to writing, she was most certainly my self-appointed guru.

Six seasons and six years later, fans of Sex and the City had to accept the reality that the series was over – me included. The two movies after that were okay and all, but I still missed the vibes the TV show had.

While I went back to my life and my reality, Carrie’s adventures continued to stay with me. She would pop back into my mind when I decided to do a little writing. I took detours to the Apple stores at malls to have a look at the laptops, always wishing I could get one myself.

And when I finally got a MacBook Air in 2022, it felt symbolic. The first time I wrote a story, I felt like I was Carrie Bradshaw, typing away on her laptop in front of the window of her apartment in the West Village, Lower Manhattan.

Confession: I still feel like I’m Carrie Bradshaw whenever I write on the Mac. 

Fast forward 21 years, And Just Like That…, the three-season sequel to Sex and the City, minus Samantha, just wrapped up its third and final season last Friday. I admit, it was interesting to see how the characters have evolved with time, and continue experiencing aging, grief, love and relationships in the post-COVID world.  Although the show didn’t exactly tick all my entertainment boxes, I will still miss watching Carrie and her girls trying to live life to the fullest.

What I got out of it was this: Carrie continued to write, unafraid to push past her comfort zone of writing about life to writing a novel. And in her desire to get through life’s roadblocks, she continued to do what she does best – write.

And just like her, I will do the same.