{"id":7574,"date":"2018-06-06T13:40:31","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T11:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=7574"},"modified":"2018-06-06T13:45:23","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T11:45:23","slug":"blame-anything-but-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/7574\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex and the City<\/em> didn’t air on Discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

I often remark on here that rather too many women thought Sex and the City<\/em> was a documentary. I’ve now found an article<\/a> that shows I wasn’t exaggerating:<\/p>\n

When the last episode of \u201cSex and the City\u201d aired in February 2004, I hosted a viewing party for 200 guests. It was my swan song as well: Eight months later, I would move to New York, where, armed with my \u201cSex and the City\u201d DVDs, my transformation really began.<\/p>\n

Based on what I knew from \u201cSATC,\u201d I expected the city to sweep me off my feet. I envisioned nonstop brunching and shopping.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What always surprises me about these stories is the lack of friends and family who try to talk some sense into them.<\/p>\n

I lived on food bought for me on dates and the occasional bodega tuna sandwich. For clothes, it was wrap dresses from Diane von Furstenberg sample sales combined with loans from designers who took pity on me \u2014 like Betsey Johnson, whom I\u2019d interviewed at Fashion Week. Different men I dated gave me YSL shoes and status purses, just like Big did for Carrie on \u201cSATC.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She’s relying on “dates” for food and clothes. Yay for female empowerment!<\/p>\n

I also subscribed to Carrie\u2019s ethos when it came to men. There was no such thing as a bad date \u2014 only a good date or a good brunch story. In my writing, I gave my boyfriends nicknames (one was \u201cProm King\u201d) just like Carrie and her friends did.<\/p>\n

I went out with a prince: Lorenzo Borghese from \u201cThe Bachelor.\u201d I even dated the British ex-boyfriend of \u201cSex and the City\u201d creator Candace Bushnell \u2014 the original Carrie. He was one of a few men who comprised the composite character Mr. Big.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A common feature among women who spent a decade sleeping around is their belief that anyone is in the slightest bit interested in their exploits. Seriously, does anyone care who she was shagging in New York a decade ago? She didn’t even manage to screw a household name.<\/p>\n

Between 2004 and 2011, I filmed nine TV pilots \u2014 many of which were reality shows, and all of which were a derivation of some kind of \u201cSATC\u201d role for me. I was always the Carrie. In one pilot, I hosted for Animal Planet; the premise was that your dog would choose whom you\u2019d go out with.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One can’t honestly say at this point that getting the dog’s input is a bad idea.<\/p>\n

Their core complaint about me was that I was a quote-unquote \u201cfame whore.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I suspect many of your female contemporaries thought that description contained one word too many.<\/p>\n

Finally, I cut my ties to New York and moved to San Francisco full-time in 2013. I tried being a tech columnist and writing a personal-growth book called \u201cExperiments in Happiness.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which sits on my shelf beside Paul Gascoigne’s book “Experiments in Sobriety”<\/em>.<\/p>\n

These days I work as a change activist, mounting summits for world leaders and serving as an adviser to startups and entrepreneurs looking to better the planet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So she’s found religion<\/a>. Sadly she’s not locked herself away in a convent.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m finally living a life of integrity, and I\u2019m attuned to my values. I never heard about values on \u201cSex and the City.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, no.<\/p>\n

I dated a woman for a while, a beautiful entrepreneur who was also jilted by New York \u2014 that\u2019s definitely not something you saw Carrie do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How edgy<\/em>. No sign of mental disorder here at all, oh no.<\/p>\n

But dating is not front and center in my life anymore, although it was all I talked about in my 20s. That\u2019s pretty one-dimensional.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You think?<\/p>\n

Last year, I ended a two-year relationship with a man who ultimately couldn\u2019t commit and wanted to be polyamorous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Heh! I suspect he could commit, only not with someone who spent a decade shagging random men in New York in return for food and clothes. And why wait two years? Desperation much?<\/p>\n

Again, \u201cSATC\u201d and the \u201clessons\u201d it taught me is the culprit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It wasn’t supposed to be a lifestyle manual. And as Daniel Ream often points out, the book was far more realistic in its portrayal of single life in New York than the TV series was, and ought to have served as a warning.<\/p>\n

The show wasn\u2019t a rubric on how to find a lifelong partnership.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You don’t say!<\/p>\n

If I was more grounded and had honestly assessed whether this man was a good partner for me, I don\u2019t think we ever would have dated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So it’s the fault of a TV show which concluded in her early twenties that she dated an unsuitable man in her mid-thirties? For all the talk of female empowerment, a lot of these modern women don’t seem to have quite grasped the whole personal responsibility thing, have they? Nor do they seem to understand that the choices you make in your twenties stay with you for life.<\/p>\n

Crushed and needing to regroup, I took a sabbatical and lived in Bali for eight months on a healing journey.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Heh<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I was also celibate during my time there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Much to the disappointment of knuckle-dragging Australian youths in beer singlets.<\/p>\n

I do wonder what my life would have looked like if \u201cSex and the City\u201d had never come across my consciousness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t know, but I’m confident if you got lost in the Arctic wilderness you’d blame Ice Road Truckers<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Perhaps I\u2019d be married with children now?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given your appalling judgement, immaturity, and lack of impulse control I’d say that’s highly unlikely.<\/p>\n

Who knows, but I can say for sure that, as clever and aesthetically pleasing as the show was \u2014 and, as much as I agree with its value of female friendships \u2014 it showed too much consumerism and fear of intimacy disguised as empowerment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Modern feminism is rather good at disguising all manner of vices and self-destructive behaviour as empowerment.<\/p>\n

Whom you\u2019re dating, what you\u2019re wearing, or how good you look at that premiere \u2014 none of that s\u2013t matters unless you genuinely love yourself. Solid relationships are what really matter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Who knew?<\/p>\n

Truth be told, I wish I had never heard of \u201cSATC.\u201d I\u2019m sure there are worse role models but, for me, it did permanent and measurable damage to my psyche that I\u2019m still cleaning up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As useful a description of the effects of modern feminism as you’re likely to find.<\/p>\n

Two months ago, I started seeing someone I never would have dated 10 years earlier.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A whole two months? How long to you think she can hide the disgust?<\/p>\n

Back then, I wasn\u2019t looking to get married or seek a lifelong partner, and that was a mistake. This man is a very reasonable choice, and I\u2019m at a place in my life where reasonable is very sexy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Two. Months.<\/p>\n

Now, I feel like genuine me \u2014 I\u2019m no longer a Carrie Bradshaw knockoff.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, you’re now Samantha. Congratulations!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I often remark on here that rather too many women thought Sex and the City was a documentary. I’ve now found an article that shows I wasn’t exaggerating: When the last episode of \u201cSex and the City\u201d aired in February … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[79,87,27,78],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7574"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7574"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7579,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7574\/revisions\/7579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}