Sex and the City as Life?

I was watching a rerun of the television series "Sex and the City" the other night when it struck me how similar my life is to show, minus (of course) the Manolo Blahniks. In the next episode, it struck me how I wish my life was more like the show. It made me wonder: Do women relate to "Sex and the City" because it closely resembles our lives? Or do we relate to it because it represents the lives that we want?

We all want to lead exciting and fascinating lives. There are weeks, I'll admit, when I come home from work and curl up in my "fat pants" and watch three hours of t.v. Which shows how "Sex and the City" is completely unrealistic - even when Samantha was sick in bed, she never wore sweat pants. She wore a nightie and a silk bathrobe. But I digress.

Then there are other weeks where I feel like my life is an episode of the show. Those are the weeks when my life most closely resembles Carrie's fictional life: A busy social calendar, moments of social anxiety and unusual predicaments, all topped off with great shoes. And I do get myself in some predicaments (you may refer back to my "Hi, I'm a stranger..." post). And I do have some fabulous shoes, even if they aren't Manolos.

Then there are the characters themselves, which really is what draws us to the show in the first place. We feel close to the four women because they remind us of someone: ourselves. Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha are caricatures of real women, and that is why we identify so closely with them. They each represent different qualities that every woman has, but they are blown way out of proportion. As a wise friend once told me, every woman is neurotic and full of self-doubt (like Carrie). We're all smart and self-depracating (like Miranda). We are all confident, sexy and uninhibited (a la Samantha). And ultimately, we all desire to love and be loved...not to mention, married...(like Charlotte).

And we all have a Mr. Big. You know who I'm talking about: the guy who is unavailable, who treats us badly and is bad for us, who disappoints us and hurts us and makes us cry, but who we can't live without. We're deeply, viscerally, gut-wrenchingly drawn to Mr. Big. We love him, we hate him, we love to hate him, we hate the way he makes us feel, we love the way he makes us feel, and ultimately, we hate ourselves for loving and hating him, even though it feels SO GOOD.

Of course, the real-life Mr. Big is of the pre-flying to Paris to save Carrie variety. In real life, Mr. Big doesn't fly to Paris. He doesn't save us from another man, or from ourselves. But that doesn't stop us from entertaining fantasies of him recognizing the error of his ways and reforming his bad-boy behavior to be with us. Every woman, at some point in her life, wants Mr. Big to come crawling back.

The only difference between the "Sex and the City" Mr. Big and the real-life Mr. Big is that in real-life, we move on. And our Mr. Big don't look like Chris Noth, but that's a minor detail.