Of all the great cultural debates in our time, few rival that ofBig versus Aidan.
Its ketchup versus mayo.
A blue dress versus a gold one.
HBO
Jack versus that damn door.
Deciding whether youre on Team Aidan or Team Big is an integral part of theSex and the Cityfan experience.
But its also so much more than that.
Sarah Jessica Parker and John Corbett are seen kissing on the set of theAnd Just Like That…on February 9, 2023, in New York City.
Because whichever way you go will tell you a lot about yourself.
It might explain some of your romantic choices.
And how traumatized you are by your childhood.
Or maybe thats just me.
So much to unpack here.
For a long time I flew my Team Big flag with pride.
Sarah Jessica Parker and John Corbett are seen kissing on the set of theAnd Just Like That…on February 9, 2023, in New York City.
Sure, he wasnt always perfect.
But he came to her rescue in Paris!
He was her soulmate!
Lets go back a little.
Like I said, the Big versus Aidan debate is about much more than one man versus the other.
They represent two archetypes of heterosexual masculinity.
The choice, therefore, is not just Big or Aidan.
Its anxiety or security.
Why, oh why, then, would anyone choose the former over the latter?
Well, this is where things get interesting.
Perhaps they came from a broken home or experienced some sort of abandonment or loss in their childhood.
Whatever it was, it has left them with some sort of emotional void.
Hello, Ive been totherapy.
Without getting too pseudo-analytical about fictional characters, this seems sort of like the dynamic between Carrie and Big.
After all, this is a man who decided to move to Paris without consulting his girlfriend.
A man who insisted he never wanted to get married and then married someone almost half his age.
A man who cheated on his wife in their marital home.
But thats another article entirely.
A season-four episode of the popular HBO series explores loss in all its forms.
Rediscovering it after the death of my own mom helped me make sense of my new reality.
Beyond that, I romanticized it.
In my early 20s, I longed for a relationship like Carrie and Bigs.
One that was furiously passionate, mercurial, and melodramatic.
There was something seductive about the push-pull dynamicaddictive, even.
Like Id won some sort of perverse competition.
And theres nothing romantic or exciting about that.
Its mostly just unpleasant.
And its not hard to see why: Healthy relationships make for boring television.
But in real life, boring is probably what all of us should be striving towards.
Oh, and did I mention whosreturning in season two?
With this in mind, it seems that Carrie was never meant to end up with Big after all.
Maybe theres something better waiting for me, too.
This article originally appeared inBritishVogue.
