I Hate Carrie Bradshaw

I never watched Sex & the City while it was on HBO due in no small part to the fact that I didn't have HBO. Since its syndication on TBS and the CW, however, I've managed to catch up on the pop-culture powerhouse that swept the nation. And while I can understand why people like the show, I don't understand why they like the main character. I don't. In fact, I hate Carrie Bradshaw.

Let's ignore the fact that she's a 90-something pound 30-something year-old woman who runs around the city in bras and short-shorts (or as my co-worker would say, poon-poon shorts), and that she somehow makes a fabulous living as a writer, a living enabling her to pay for her fabulous $500 a pair shoes, fabulous designer outfits (including those poon-poon shorts), and fabulous food and drinks at the trendiest restaurants and nightclubs in the city.

The reason I can't stand Carrie Bradshaw is because she's needy. She's whiny. She's clingy. Basically, she's the crazy girl who is always scaring guys away, not understanding why they don't want to be her boyfriend. And love her. And marry her. And be with her forever and ever because she's so witty and insightful and ohmigod we're in love and why are you bothering to date anyone else because this is it?!

Carrie Bradshaw gives women a bad name.

In Carrie's world, there is no dating, no middle ground--there are only extremes. She either fucks random guys or falls hopelessly in love.

Who is this overly introspective, yet complelety shallow woman? She's the character that witty, literary teen-agers used to dream about becoming. She's the urban alternative to the white-picket fenced in suburban mom. Her character is exactly how I, at 17, thought I would be as a 30-something year-old woman in New York. The problem is that while my idea of women evolved, Carrie Bradshaw didn't. She's still acting out my high-schooler fantasy, and now that I'm a 30 year-old woman, she seems ridiculous.