I Binged Sex and the City at 27 and Realized Relationships Haven’t Changed, We Just Keep Adapting

Let me start with this. Sex and the City first aired in 1998, the same year I was born. And somehow, I binged it in 2025 and felt like it was written for right now.

As a 27-year-old woman, that hit me in a strange way. In 1998, I was literally a newborn. I wasn’t old enough to understand anything about love, heartbreak, or the chaos of dating. But watching it now? Every situation, every “what are we” moment, every heartbreak felt eerily familiar.

What struck me the most is how women are constantly adapting in relationships. We evolve with the times, navigating shifting roles, expectations, and emotional labor. Meanwhile, men for the most part seem to stay the same.

Same Game, New Aesthetics

We’re in the era of dating apps, situationships, soft launching partners, and ghosting as a norm. The aesthetic of relationships has changed, sure. But the emotional dynamics? Not really.

Carrie dated men who didn’t want commitment, weren’t emotionally available, or were too busy chasing success. Twenty-plus years later, not much has changed. We’re still analyzing texts, decoding mixed signals, and adjusting ourselves to fit into someone else’s undefined plan.

Women keep learning the new lingo. We read the books, go to therapy, talk to friends. We carry the emotional weight of figuring things out even when we’re not the ones causing the confusion.

What’s wild is that a show from the nineties still mirrors today’s dating culture so accurately. It makes you wonder if we’ve actually progressed or if we’ve just updated the packaging.

Why It Still Hits So Hard

Watching Sex and the City now makes me realize that external tools change but people don’t. The show aired in a time of landlines and newspaper columns, but the emotional rollercoasters remain painfully relatable.

It’s especially wild when you consider that the stories were originally real. The character of Carrie Bradshaw was based on the real-life columns of Candace Bushnell, published in The New York Observer between 1994 and 1996. That raw, unfiltered perspective on love and dating was groundbreaking then and still feels bold now.

Long before we had TikTok therapists or Twitter threads on emotional availability, we had Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha navigating the same confusing, vulnerable world we’re still trying to figure out today.

The show didn’t just entertain me. It validated experiences I couldn’t always put into words. It made me feel seen, and it made me feel a little less alone.

It Inspired Me to Write More

Finishing the series didn’t just make me emotional. It lit something up in me.

Even though I’m not a professional writer, watching Carrie turn her messy, beautiful experiences into something meaningful reminded me why I love writing too. It made me want to write about modern love, self-discovery, and all the little moments in between, especially the ones we don’t talk about enough.

There’s something powerful in capturing what it feels like to love in the 2020s. To explore identity, ambition, and connection in a time that’s constantly shifting yet still stuck in the same emotional patterns.

So yes, Sex and the City made me want to write more. Not because it’s a perfect show, it’s definitely not, but because it proves that stories about love, heartbreak, and figuring ourselves out will always matter.

What Should I Write Next?

This show got me thinking about love, identity, and how much or how little we’ve really changed. I’d love to explore more about modern dating, emotional labor, or even stories from the other side, like what relationships look like from a guy’s perspective.

Let me know what you'd want to read next.