PUA Blogger

Those parental watchdog anal retentives have been hollering atop soap boxes about the dearth of educational value in television programming pretty much since the days of the Johnny Carson Show, but here’s the catch: girly television is like a primer for men who want to understand women. I’ve heard the complaints from guys forced to sit through Gilmore Girls re-runs and the typical snide commentary (”Oh, you mean, Sex and the Shitty?”) However, these men fail to see the gleaming social education opportunities in such programming.

Obviously, not all shows are created equal; you’re not going to get much of anything out of The Young and the Restless, except for a strong desire to hurl and/or swear off TV for life. However, if you can muster the discipline to sit through half an hour of Sex and the City, you can learn a lot about women, and not just about female stereotypes either.

One of the reasons that Sex and the City succeeded so very much and was able to draw itself out for an uncanny six seasons with such a sizeable fan base was the conflation of oddly accurate situational slapstick and a level of emotional honesty. Yes, this is a post-women’s lib world. Yes, women can now be high-powered corporate lawyers with high salaries and even higher shoes. But most women still seek a soul mate, a life partner, or at least a boyfriend. The women’s liberation movement did not, as some have suspected, annihilated the romantic impulse. Rather, it has simply expanded the breadth of ambition to the desire to have it all–career, real estate, and personal life– as well as an anxiety that the work-life balance may not be achievable. And Sex and the City got that. As its protagonist Carrie Bradshaw says to her editor at Vogue in one episode, “You have a successful career and a relationship. I was worried women only get one or the other, but you have it all.”

So here’s Lesson One, guys. Just because a woman is professionally successful does not mean that she is a callous, castrating monster. And just because a woman wants a relationship does not mean that she is not accomplished, intelligent, or driven. It may be difficult for you to conceive, but most women do want it all, and the desires for a career and a relationship are not mutually exclusive. So while it may be intimidating to ask out that lovely business owner, doctor, or novelist, she might actually enjoy some dinnertime companionship. Imagine that!

On that note, we come to Lesson Two: women will indeed date men who are less financially secure than them. In Sex and the City, Miranda, a partner at a law firm with a degree from Harvard, dates and eventually marries Steve, a bartender. Admittedly, their disparity in income leads to a breakup at one point in the series, but only because bartender Steve succumbs to the typical but detrimental belief that being with a wealthier woman emasculates him. This is never a problem for her, as she tells her girlfriends, “He’s just happy being a bartender, period. You’re all missing my point. None of this matters to me. I don’t want it to matter to him. It’s like when single men have a lot of money, it’s to their advantage. If a single woman has money, it’s a problem to be dealt with. It’s ridiculous. I want to enjoy my success, not apologize for it.” You heard the lady, money ain’t no thang.

Unlike what you may have heard from sources as reliable as Lil Kim and the grumbling, single bum at the honkeytonk dive, all women are not money-grubbing whores looking at you through alimony-colored glasses. Of course, some women want a man of means. Just look at the plethora of websites like SeekingMillionaires.com. But many women are not, and professional success does not negate the attraction to funny, interesting guys like yourself. Quit shlumping around with plebian low self-esteem and low standards. Even if you don’t have money, you probably have other great qualities, and if you don’t, well, start cultivating some, you loser!

And now, last but not least, here’s what you can learn from Sex and the City. Despite what you might like to believe, women are human too. They have smell, they poop, and they get STDs. In one of the first episodes of Sex and the City, Carrie is mortified after farting in front of her boyfriend. The PR sexaholic Samantha acknowledges male denial when it comes to female bodily functions, saying, “[According to guys] We aren’t supposed to fart, douche, use tampons, or have hair in places we shouldn’t.” Well, guess what!? Women do. Women fart, douche, and use tampons. And if you’re ever going to spend any length of time with a woman, you’ll realize that, as does Harry, the husband of WASP art curator Charlotte in one episode called “The Ick Factor,” in which the two get serious gastrointestinal malfunction after a French dinner. As Carrie says, “Surviving a night of food poisoning together wasn’t the stuff of great romance but it was the stuff of lasting love.” Maybe you aren’t looking for lasting love, but if you’re looking to at least outlast a menstrual cycle with a woman, you’re going to have to accept that she’s human, you’re human, and that that might okay with the both of you.

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