My sex and the city love life
By: Sarah Ivens
Published: January 11, 2008
When Londoner Sarah Ivens split up from her partner, she
got a hot new job in New York, and took a bite of the Big
Apple dating scene, Sex and the City style. Here she reveals
how to survive the hunt for Mr Big.
New York City is made for single people.
In the Big Apple, stories about going solo feel right.
Why else would a TV show about four often desperate, sometimes
promiscuous and frequently unlikable women capture our imagination
so strongly.
When you live here, Sex and the City isn't just a DVD treat,
it's a way of life.
I should know. I took a job as editor-in-chief of the US
edition of OK! magazine three years ago and transported my
life to Manhattan.
I'm single and – considering I'm 32 and my biological
deadline is creeping nearer – surprisingly happy about
it.
Despite being a born and bred Londoner, I wouldn't feel so
secure in my singleton status if I was back home, surrounded
by friends and family.
I'd have new-mum friends to remind me of my ticking clock
and a concerned mother angling for grandchildren, plus a diary
filled with dinner parties where couples compete to perfect
the latest Jamie Oliver recipe.
In New York, this doesn't happen.
New mums are banished to New Jersey, wannabe grandmothers
feel lucky if you pick up the phone to them because everyone's
schedules are so tight, and as for dinner parties – we
use our ovens to store shoes because our flats are so small,
and hire private rooms in Tribeca restaurants for special
occasions.
I mean, who has time for washing up when you're living in
a neon-lit whirlwind?
After ten years in serious relationships, I'm not sure I'd
have survived suddenly being on the dating scene again anywhere
else.
After a painful split at 29, I needed to go it alone for
a while.
And I decided that New York, with its 24-hour delivery-via-doorman
culture, was the place to do it.
Being in a couple – especially if you're a woman –
essentially means compromising your own needs.
I'd been doing that since I was 22.
Now I was without a man my time was just for me.
I was going to live my own Sex and the City existence –
but would I really find that my new life matched the series?
Carrie from Sex and The City who should have a diploma in
the world of dating
Or, with the new SATC film being released this year, has
New York moved on since those four girls first hit our screens
in 1998?
I was worried about one thing straight away: without a man,
how would I fill my weekends?
Even in SATC, it seemed that when the girls weren't brunching
together or shopping together, they were on their own. This
scared me off being single for the first few months.
I almost felt like taking my old boyfriend back, or replacing
him with the hippie photographer I'd met on a photo shoot.
But I soon learned that, even without a relationship on the
go,no one has the time to be lonely in New York.
When my friends are out of town or holed up at work, there's
still my personal trainer, personal shopper, acupuncturist,
yoga teacher, massage therapist and manicurist – plus
the woman at the dry cleaner's who's taken a liking to me
– to gossip with.
People talk to you here.
Even in nightclubs, rather than viewing you as competition
and flicking their hair in your face, other single women on
the prowl share survival tips in the restrooms.
Single women talk about sex – or their lack of it –
openly and swap e-mail addresses, without behaving as though
there is a dating drought working its way up the Hudson River
and that you are somehow a carrier of that curse.
That's not to say I don't miss one-to-one affection and attention.
New Yorkers are friendlier and more open to small talk, but
being single does leave you with a physical contact deficit
that can turn people into tree huggers (Central Park on Saturdays),
group huggers (Central Park on Sundays) and devotees of the
Pleasure Chest, a West Village sex toy emporium used by my
girlfriends and the characters in Sex and the City.
When it comes to getting their sexual needs fulfilled, New
York women are like Samantha – business-like and matter-of-fact
about it.
This need for physical attention is what drives successful,
otherwise satisfied single women out into the bars of Manhattan.
Frankly, in every other way, men have become a bit redundant
– we certainly don't need them for their high-flying
careers, as we have our own. As a city, New York wholly accepts
single, independent women – we keep Manhattan's economy
(and its hairdressers) in business.
The Sex and the City girls were a novelty back when it started
– now they're the norm.
And herein lies the rub.
Manhattan is overflowing with wealthy, attractive, witty,
intelligent women – yet their only prospect is the balding
chap who works on Wall Street.
The few decent non-gays are taken and you can easily end
up wishing you were a lesbian and could fancy your new best
friend (ie, the artist with the summer house in St Bart's).
When you can have fab nights out with your girlfriends and
gay boys in Chelsea, downing fish-tanks of margarita while
dancing to a DJ who loves a Barry Manilow medley, a sedate
date at a top-notch restaurant with the balding banker is
bound to fall a little flat.
And besides, there are three key changes to the NYC dating
scene since SATC left our screens four years ago.
First, let me introduce you to the text buddy.
He is the guy who you meet, share chemistry with, and perhaps
even a kiss on the cobbles outside Spice Market (a very good
choice for a first date because it's dark and romantic, and
shows he's had to make an effort for you).
But instead of calling you, he texts (on the third day).
You reply, hinting another date would be well received, and
he texts you again.
You ignore this one – it's rude, he should call.
He texts you a week later, calling you "doll" and
saying you should go out again soon, and these texts continue,
without ever actually confirming a date, for weeks, sometimes
months, until all chemistry has faded and you've forgotten
what he looks like.
You can't tell him to stop because that seems an over-reaction
to the totally non-relationship you've been conducting via
Motorola.
All you can do, after the initial disappointment that he
doesn't actually want to see you again, is be reassured by
the fact that a) you're not going to get pregnant or catch
anything from him and b) when a date with another guy goes
wrong and blows your confidence, in a few days you'll be getting
one of those flirtatious texts to perk you up again –
after all, it's better than nothing.
The second rule of new dating in NYC is to keep them coming
like Ferrero Rocher on Christmas Day.
You need a collection of "possibles" around just
in case you fancy a weekend break to Nantucket or someone
to fix your TiVo (our version of a Sky+ box).
The women of Manhattan are currently consuming a book called
The Four Man Plan, in which author Cindy Lu insists you need
four chaps on the go at all times so they feel they have to
fight for you.
In her book, one will prove himself more than the others
and become your dream guy, having beaten off the competition
with a Yankee baseball bat.
I like this idea, so I've taken it on.
You can't sleep with all four men of course – I suggest
have sex with one, kiss another, and flirt outrageously at
parties or by e-mail with the other two – but it means
you never feel totally without attention. At the moment, I'm
juggling a chef, a writer, an old friend from England and
a man who I really don't fancy but he fancies me and that's
good to keep spirits up.
And if SATC was all about self-analysis, calling your girlfriend
at 2am and bemoaning your latest relationship crisis, nowadays
we're tougher.
The Sex and the City girls: From left to right: Charlotte,
Carrie, Miranda and Samantha
So the third and final rule you need to know before taking
a bite out of the Big Apple is how to recover quickly.
NYC doesn't cope well with weaklings or moaners.
Instead of letting your confidence crash when he doesn't
call after you finally slept with him, or you poke him on
Facebook and he ignores you, you pretend he's dead –
that he's wearing concrete boots underwater near the Brooklyn
Bridge, or he got fatally hit on the head by a puck at a Rangers
ice hockey game.
This makes it much easier to move on without beating yourself
up.
After what I thought was a perfect second date with John
(where he said he wanted to see me in some new boots I'd just
ordered and bake me his family recipe for pumpkin pie) I never
heard from him again.
I didn't know how I could have read the signs so wrong.
I'd really allowed myself to believe we had a future.
Then it hit me! His poor family…he must have died!
I convinced myself of this so powerfully that when I bumped
into him six months later on the subway, I jumped like I'd
seen a ghost. Literally.
So there you have it. My updated version of sex in this fabulous
city: expect more texts than sex; date four men at a time
to keep your rejection quota low; and wish death upon all
potential boyfriends who refuse to fall in love with you.
It sounds pretty tough, but dating is hard – and at
least here in New York City, we appreciate that!
Single in the city, then and now
How does the real present compare to the TV past? SATC Cosmopolitan
cocktails gave you dutch courage NOW Smart water gives you
good skin. SATC You got your knickers in a twist over one
guy NOW No more love triangles, you're into love pentagons
— now we play four men off against each other SATC Goal
was to find a soul mate NOW Goal is to not lose your soul
— we all have spiritual cleansing regularly SATC days
Agent Provocateur lace thongs NOW Spanx worn with no shame
to smooth off-putting lumps and bumps SATC days Mr Big leaves
early morning messages on your answerphone NOW Your Mr Big
pokes you on Facebook SATC You bump into the future boss of
your dream job at Sunday brunch NOW You join the Supper Club
(a dating/ networking club imported from London) and make
a bee-line for the most powerful man in the room
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