Maybe Mr. Big Was Never the Love Story.

Caroline Huckeba

Aug 20

4 min read

Three years, one breakup, and the woman who taught me the love story I was looking for wasn't romantic.

I am twenty-three years old and, as a rite of passage, I have finally started watching Sex and the City.

The first time I ever watched an episode, I was twenty. At the time, I had a terrible self-tan, a nose ring, and a tooth gem. Looking back, that version of me feels less like my younger self and more like a stranger staring back at me in the mirror.

I was in the middle of my first real breakup. My first attempt at dating after spending high school as the weird girl who wouldn't even go to a school dance with a boy.

He studied computer science. Every so often, he'd remind me I wasn't particularly hardworking, but I was very pretty. Then he left to work at Microsoft and, as far as I can tell, continued treating another girl poorly in considerably cooler weather.

The breakup was catastrophic. My parents knew. My friends knew. Someone was almost always assigned to keep an eye on me. If it wasn't my mom, my dad, or Olivia Rodrigo's SOUR, it was my best friend Drew.

After my psychology classes, I'd drive to Drew's house, collapse onto her couch, and she'd remind me, "Don't text him."

One afternoon, I showed up and Drew and her mom were watching Sex and the City. They invited me onto the couch like they were letting me into a support group.

Honestly, they may have put it on because they knew I was coming over to cry. They had probably run out of things to say. There are only so many times you can tell your friend a man isn't worth destroying herself over before you need reinforcements. So they brought in Carrie Bradshaw.

Drew, however, preferred a more direct approach.

"Carol, why are you crying?" she'd ask. "You saw those videos of him jump roping. He doesn't even try to hide them." Or: "Carol, he thinks he's an anime character. How do you even want him back? Honestly, you should be worried about him." And somehow, she was right.

Because while I was mourning the loss of the greatest love story I'd ever known, Drew was watching from the outside thinking: Are we sure this is the man we're crying over?

Sometimes they'd pour me a glass of wine. Sometimes they'd point at the television.

"Wake up from Mr. Big.". "Mr. Big is a cycle of evil."

At twenty, I thought everyone eventually got a Mr. Big. Now I think the real lesson is that he's neither inevitable nor aspirational. He isn't an "if" or a "when." He's someone you can simply choose not to date.

Unfortunately, I learned that a little too late. Watching Sex and the City became part of my breakup routine. Olivia Rodrigo's "the grudge." Drew's couch. Carrie Bradshaw.

Sometimes the show would just happen to be on while I was crying. Maybe Drew planned it. Maybe Carrie was my guardian angel.

I'd stay until it felt socially acceptable to go home and cry somewhere else. I was in that strange stage of college where, once my homework was finished, I had no idea what to do with myself. I didn't know how to build a life outside of classes. I didn't have hobbies, ambitions that felt real, or a version of adulthood that made sense to me.

All I knew was that one spectacularly ordinary man had decided to stop letting me love him.

So Drew and I watched Carrie with her guardian angels: Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte.

We did try to switch things up once. Drew suggested Showgirls.

In hindsight, this was like recommending tequila to someone recovering from food poisoning.

Instead of Carrie wondering if she should call Big, there were an alarming number of nipples and that infamous pool scene with Nomi and Kyle MacLachlan, which somehow managed to look less like sex and more like someone unsuccessfully trying to perform CPR in a hot tub.

It was exactly the wrong movie to watch when I'd just been emotionally flattened by a man and was entertaining the theory that perhaps all men were, in fact, evil. I'm still haunted by that pool thrashing.

We went back to Sex and the City the next day. Carrie was a hot mess. The important distinction was that she was still hot. I was mostly just the mess. Carrie could only do so much through the television. Drew knew what to do in real life.

Now I'm watching Sex and the City again, three years later. I've finished college. I've lived in another country. I have my dream job: getting to write. I'm finally safe from my own Mr. Big. I'm chasing things that actually chase me back.

My baggage isn't vintage Dior like Carrie's. It's mostly emotional and carried in a dirty tote bag. But I still have a Drew. Three years and a couple of bad relationships later, Drew is still the person who picks me up in her car so we can get the really crispy Diet Coke from McDonald's. Or go to our favorite dive bar and order vodka crans.

Some things change. Some things don't. Carrie spent six seasons asking whether women could really have it all: the shoes, the city, the career, the man. But I couldn't help wondering if she'd been answering her own question the whole time.

Maybe having it all was never about finding your Big. Maybe it was about finding your Drew.