GTB and I started watching Sex and the City from the beginning after he got me season 2 on DVD for Valentine’s Day, despite my well-documented negative feelings about that particular holiday. We’re up to season 4, which I have to admit I don’t like very much. And I have to say, I think it’s because I’m sick of Carrie.

I don’t know what happened. I used to love that show. But I have such a hard time now watching Carrie’s angst and listening to her whine. I mean, in one episode, she and Aidan are back together, but she feels like he is punishing her for her affair with Big the previous season. He forgives her, of course, and in the very next episode, she’s being a total bitch to him for trying to help when her computer goes on the fritz. Um, what? Is this girl incapable of a little gratitude?

Then I remembered that GTB sometimes teases me for getting overly invested in fictional characters. My frustration with Carrie is a source of amusement for him, and he’ll remind me, “She’s not real. Why are you getting all irritated by her?” And that forces me to remember that Carrie is angsty not because she is supposed to be a reflection of real life, but because she is fiction, and fiction has to be interesting. And watching a TV show about people who are blissed out and happily coupled up would be about as interesting as watching the grass grow, knowledge the writers of Sex and the City demonstrated when a few episodes after the computer incident, the four ladies get together to catch up and when it’s Carrie’s turn to dish on her life, she says, “Aidan, Aidan, Aidan….” Tell, don’t show.

So then last night, I’m out with some friends, drinking and talking about girl stuff. Two of them are going through painful breakups and are in the midst of the kind of self-exploration and reflection you are only totally invested in when you are heartbroken. I’m a really big believer in the breakup catharsis. I guess after the kind of living I did in my twenties, I’d have to be. But my friends were no more willing to hear things like, “Yeah, but think of how much better off you’ll be in the long run because you are doing this important work now; it ensures that your next relationship will be more fulfilling…” than I was during my own post-breakup periods (notice the plural) of self-analysis.

The thing is, these women are awesome. They are brilliant, beautiful, hilarious, warm, and a ton of fun to be with. Ya know, the whole package. But I still heard them saying things like, “He isn’t the kind of guy who would normally be into me,” about men who had just spent many hours making out with them. And the whole time, I’m sitting there thinking, “Shit, I wonder if I could think of ONE guy who wouldn’t be into these girls.”

I’ve spent most of my adult life asking gut-wrenching questions that are some variation of “Is sitting in this bar, half drunk, talking about all of the things I do and don’t like about myself and about how I only half believe I’m equipped for a healthy relationship and about how I’m not sure I even know what I want from a guy and, really, how much of this can I attribute to losing my father at a young age…will all of that overanalyzing better guarantee that when I do find the right relationship, I’ll really be that much better off?” The answer, I now know, is yes.

But that isn’t at all helpful to someone who is hurting over their own relationship woes. And, worse, it’s boring as hell.

I’ve lost perspective. Because I’ve found what I think is the holy grail of human relationships, I have all but lost the ability to relate to women who don’t know how amazing they are. I can’t understand why women as cool as these two would settle for anything less than a guy who feels grateful for every second he spends in her presence. I’m baffled that they don’t demand it from every guy they meet. That they don’t see how obvious it is that they deserve it.

It hasn’t been that long since I was in their shoes. Friends would email me encouraging messages about how great they thought I was, and about how someday, a guy will see that too. And now, I’m on the other side of that and I’m frustrated that I, someone who remembers how that feels, can’t figure out the right thing to say to make it all better. Who knows this angst better than me?

I wouldn’t trade my relationship with GTB for anything in the world. But I still feel a little out of character when I’m out with a group of girlfriends and I’m the happily settled one.

But mostly, I hate how being happily settled has made me this pompous.

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