I’ve watched and re-watched Sex and the City more times than I’d like to admit. Not because it isn’t a great show, but mostly because there have been instances when I could have been doing something way more productive but instead I would choose to indulge in the lives of these wonderfully “real” women.

I love this show. I believe it to have been one of the greatest series in television. It’s extremely well written and even better performed. You constantly find yourself connecting with these women; loving them one moment and then hating them the next; judging their choices and then sympathizing with them; disagreeing with certain behavior and character traits while endlessly praising others. It takes a true talent to be able to so expertly portray such vulnerability of humanity, craftily displaying both its ugly cracks and beautiful scars.

This particular scene always makes me so sad. Steve finally opens his own bar and naturally at its launch party, Carrie and Steve’s silent partner Aiden run into one another. He’s cut his hair, lost some weight and the turquoise rings are gone. All that is code for ‘Carrie sees a toy she used to briefly play with before carelessly tossing it away into the dark basement’. And now that toy has magically resurfaced and it’s all new and shiny again. Like all women, selfish and oblivious to other people’s wants and needs she pounces at the opportunity, gets on the flirt train and practically smothers Aiden with the hair tosses and the head tilts. Whyyyy Carrie? Why must you enter this dangerous territory and hurt this wonderful man AGAIN when deep inside you know that all you want is Mr. Big and you’re gonna end up together in a few seasons in Paris anyway? Well…  We know that; your character doesn’t know that yet, but still… When you encounter a ghost from your past, you should leave that ghost be; not try to pry back into its world.

Every time I watch this scene and he’s all like “So now you want the cake?” and she’s all like “I never not wanted it…” I just wanna smack them both; telling her to stop being a self-centered sadist and him to snap out of it. Oh Aiden, you poor thing; falling in the traps of this poisonous woman again…