‘Sex and the City’: 2 Pivotal Scenes That Prove Carrie Bradshaw Was Terribly out of Touch With Reality on Occasion

Carrie Bradshaw was the first true female anti-hero on television. One of her biggest flaws was her absolute inability to take responsibility for her actions and understand that sometimes her behavior hurt the people around her. Several times over Sex and the City’s six-season run, Carrie made it clear that she was almost entirely out of touch with reality and would do just about anything to avoid sitting with her feelings. We’ve collected two of the most obvious examples. 

Some fans loathe Carrie Bradshaw because of her cluelessness 

Sex and the City is a largely beloved series. While the show has plenty of fans, Carrie Bradshaw has just as many haters as she has ardent fanatics. Those most critical of Carrie Bradshaw often point to her selfishness and willful ignorance as her biggest red flags. 

Carrie Bradshaw could be pretty selfish and was often more concerned with her own feelings and thoughts than the needs of those around her. She also refused to acknowledge when she had done something wrong. There were very few moments when Carrie admitted she was 100% wrong in a situation and made steps to rectify it. 

Carrie couldn’t understand why Natasha hated her

Carrie often seemed clueless, but only when she acted inappropriately or her behavior hurt someone else. In season 3 of Sex and the City, Carrie and Mr. Big carried on an affair that caused the end of his marriage to Natasha Nijinsky. Several months after the affair ended, Carrie saw Natasha in a restaurant and was stunned when Natasha gave her a dirty look and walked out. 

When Natasha looked at her with contempt, Carrie was shocked, telling her pals, “I can’t believe that there is a person in New York who could hate me that much.” From there, the sex columnist chased Natasha down, eventually crashing her lunch to “apologize.” The entire exchange proved that Carrie still didn’t understand what she had done wrong and only went looking for Natasha to assuage her guilt instead of sitting with the uncomfortable weight of knowing someone in Manhattan disliked her. 

Carrie refused to acknowledge that her friendship with Mr. Big was problematic 

Not long after the affair, Carrie and Mr. Big settled into a friendship. From the beginning, their attempt at a platonic relationship seemed problematic. It became especially troublesome when Carrie won Aidan Shaw back. 

While Carrie cheated on Aidan with Mr. Big, she continued the friendship with Mr. Big long after she and Aidan reconciled. She failed to grasp how terrible it was to continue a friendship, no matter how platonic, with her former affair partner while in a relationship with the man she cheated on. To make it all worse, she even invited Mr. Big to Aidan’s home.