I DON’T GET “SEX AND THE CITY” AND NEITHER DOES MY GIRLFRIEND

I have been relieved from any obligation to endure the Sex and The City movie because my girlfriend did not became a fan of the show during its run on HBO.  She never really got what everyone else loved about it, and so has no desire to see the feature film version.  While on the one hand I dodged a bullet (the idea of sitting through the film is right up there with the prospect of anesthetic-free knee surgery), and certainly many a guy can relate to the joy that comes from pointedly avoiding two hours and twenty minutes of women talking about fashion and sex, I am nonetheless haunted.  Haunted by the notion that people who DO get this material have got something on me.  That they see something I don’t.  That by virtue of my NOT relating to what they know is something special, they are certain that I must be deficient as a man.  That my aversion to spending time with a gaggle of incredibly close (if fictional) female friends brands me as someone who will thus never gain any insight into the female psyche, and, further thus, will never really know how to please a woman in, ahem, any way at all.  

This irrational (or is it????) fear is further compounded by the fact that the woman I am with does not relate to the show.  What does this say about me?  Does it not continue to support the argument laid out (pardon the pun) in the previous paragraph? Does it not substantiate the notion that I have chosen a woman who is emotionally unavailable, a woman who has not gained the level of camaraderie and sophistication of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha and therefore safely prevents me from ever gaining access to this mysterious world of what women are really like?  Good God, I’m so clueless that, just then, I had to go online to find out what the names of the Sex and the City characters even are!  And what if my girlfriend decided to reappraise the show, you know the way you come late to the party on a hit program and then one day you rent Season One on DVD and you’re hooked, and suddenly you see why it was such a big hit, and now she sees through me as someone who has no interest in the interior lives of women and everyone was right all along: my not getting this show is a sign of nothing more than my willful and blissful ignorance of anything that truly matters!

Okay, okay, calm down.  You liked that movie Nine Lives, and that was all about women.  When your girlfriend asked you to sit and watch the entire Complete Jane Austen series on Masterpiece Theatre, you did it.  (And, hey, she likes Jane Austen, so that proves she has plenty of authentically girly tendencies!  See?)  You even like that Tell Me You Love Me show on HBO, which is not only about couples counseling but is on the same network that Sex and the City used to be on.  In fact, you are even able to talk about feelings in your relationship when it really matters.  You’re okay…it’s going to be okay.  There’s nothing wrong with you for thinking Sex and the City is ludicrous twaddle about superficial, self-absorbed Trixies.  Oh, no.  Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.  Now all the women who love the show hate me again and are even clearer in their resolve that I am an unenlightened boor. 

Oh, brother.  I have got to take some contrary action here or these insecurities will eat me alive.  You know what?  It was HBO that got us into this, and it’s HBO that will get us out.  So, you can all do what you want.  I’m renting Deadwood.

James Napoli is an author and humorist who has also written and directed the award winning dramatic shorts “The Priests” and “Nobody Gets Hurt.”   He is a graduate of the London Film School. 

For more “I’ve Been Thinking,” check the sidebar menu on the left, or go to the Vortex Archives page.