10 Life Lessons I Learnt From Sex & The City

by Charl Pearce

I find myself referring to episodes of Sex and the City more often than I refer to song lyrics.  There’s something about this show that makes it some kind of bible to me.  If I quote this show on Twitter I’ll get at least a handful of “favourites” or replies, and it became apparent that it speaks to other girls the way it speaks to me.  Which is why I wanted to do my….

10 Life Lessons I Learnt From Sex & The City 

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1, Fashion is a lifestyle choice – if Sex & the City taught us nothing about sex, men and friendship then it taught us everything about fashion.  With the four girls having such diverse individual styles, there’s a fashion icon in Sex & the City for each womans style.  I, along with rest of woman kind, fell head over heels in love with Patricia Fields costume choices for Carries wardrobe.  Clashing colours and prints, iconic dresses, giant corsages, layers and layers of pearl necklaces, underwear as outwear and enough pairs of shoes to fill a small country.

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2, Stop expecting it to look like what you thought it would.  We all expect that at some point in life everything will miraculously fall into place and work, life, love, friends all of that will be perfect.  The truth is that it might not always look like that, you may have to forsake your perfect man in favour of the perfect job or vice versa.  What I’ve learnt is that you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it.  I look on Facebook and I see people I went to school with who are having fairytale style weddings with two giggly faced children in tow and looking very much the epitome of the “acceptable” path of life once you’ve left school.  Gain an education, get a dream job, find a man, get married, settle down…its enough to shame the singletons like me into thinking WHAT AM I DOING WRONG IN LIFE?  Nothing.  People have different paths and they won’t always look the same.  When your friends are up to their elbows in baby poo and nappies, you might still be running round town going on first dates (this is me) but expectation is very different from reality.  Reality can be much more interesting and bring bigger and better opportunities your way than how you originally envisaged your life turning out.

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3, Remember when Berger drops that bombshell to Miranda *deep breath* He’s Just. Not. That. Into. You.  There’s no mixed messages with men – if a guy wants to see you again, then he will.  He isn’t scared of his feelings for you, he hasn’t got a really early meeting in the morning, his phone hasn’t been abducted by an alien life form and taken to Mars – stop making excuses for him. If he likes you, you’ll know.  I’ve spent a lot of my adult life trying to disprove this theory, trying to rationalise to my friends why her latest squeeze might be on Facebook commenting on a girls photograph but he can’t find the time to text her back- but the truth is that I can’t.  It’s time to build a bridge, throw the guy off it and find another guy on the other side of that bridge who actually sees and appreciates how fabulous you are.

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4, Whether  Carrie likes the fact that Mishiko Michiko Kakutani (the New York Times book critic) says that in her witty world, men are disposable, its true.  Men are great, really they are.  They put shelves up for you, they let you wear their clothes, they tell you that you’re beautiful when you’re feeling down and they kiss you till your heart melts.  But they’re not the be all and end all.  How many times have you spent hours watching your phone for some guy to text you back who you’ve know about 5 minutes, or listening to love songs and associating every single one of them with him?  A month later the so called “love of your life” is replaced by a better model (who actually texts back) and if he isn’t replaced, you have yourself, your friends and LoveHoney to fall back on.

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5, Ho’s before bro’s on all accounts.  Bit of a play on the ghetto phrase there, I hope you appreciate it.  Men come and go like fashion.  They make comebacks, they fade away, but friends – they never go out of style.  Too often a male means that you shut down friendships and late night phone calls, shopping dates and cocktails with the girls are exchanged for nights in on the sofa with him.  When the sh!t hiteth the fan, we expect to go running back to our girlfriends, as though they’ll be standing there with open arms waiting to invite you back into the fold.  With the nature of friendships, they probably will, but its nice to have them their with smooth as well as with the rough.

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6, Refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies.  You know that feeling in your tummy you get when the guy that you like makes you feel like you want to throw up on him (in a good way) everytime you think about him?  The way I feel about David Beckham?  His name flashes up on your phone, it makes your heart race and you do that grinning like a loon thing at your phone.  Those butterfly feelings are important.  They”re what love is all bout and if you’re still getting those butterfly feelings 2, 10 even 30 years into the relationship, thats what counts.  Settling for anything less than that is just that, settling.  With one life to live, I don’t believe in settling for just anything because it’s there at the time.

satccomefuckme7, Sex.  Wheat grass shots make “that” taste better, pearl necklaces, tea bagging, tucus lingus, sex swings, up the butt, tantric sex, peeing on somebody  karma sutra, dirty talk, positions that require the  flexibility of an elastic band… There was no sexual act off limits in this show.  Bye bye missionary, hello multiple orgasms.

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8, There’s somebody for everybody.  You may have to kiss a lot of frogs, you may have bad dates (check), be heartbroken (check), find the one you think you’re meant to be with for life for it to all come crashing down (check) but if you’re looking for love, “Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love” – eventually it will come to you.

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9, Don’t be afraid to ask questions.  If there’s one thing we learnt through Carrie’s narrative of the entire Sex and the City run its that she asked the questions that most girls think but want to ask.  Even the ones that you don’t particularly want the answer to.  But being inquisitive is never a bad thing, they say that curiosity killed the cat, but surely there’s no greater way to learn and develop than to just ask.

satcfallinlove10, “The best relationship of all is the one you have with yourself, when you find somebody to love the you that you love, well thats just fabulous” – spoken in a voiceover by Carrie in the closing scene in Season 6 of the TV series, this quote is framed in my living room.  I think it shows that although alot of Sex & the City centres around sex, men and relationships, what shone through was that its a show about 4 completely different women who, bar their little wobbles (we all have them) are confident, successful and happy in their own skin.  I think it taught me that accepting and loving yourself first and foremost provides the best basis for future relationships (whether platonic or romantic).  After all, if you don’t love the cellulite on your thighs, those weird freckles on your knee, the way you know the lyrics to all of the worst songs, or the way that you like to eat ravioli out of the tin – who else will?

3 Comments

  1. Kris

    I love this post. I however have never watched the Sex & the City series, but I’ve heard so many great things about it that I definitely will start! All these quotes were so.. Honest. In a good way, of course. There’s just no other way to describe it. I love it.

    Reply
  2. Coco

    Oh this was fun! Carrie is so sweet and Samantha super cool!
    Have a great day :-)
    Coco
    xoxo
    Coco et La vie en rose
    Coco et La vie en rose on Bloglovin
    Coco et La vie en rose on Facebook
    (Please don’t forget to follow me back via Bloglovin, if you haven’t already. Huge thanks!)

    Reply

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