Monday, January 19, 2009

The Men of Sex And The City-Part 2: Aidan Shaw

Happy Monday Morning to all of you out there, especially the haters :)

I'm really happy that this five part series is being so well received by everyone. One little nit picky thing. The title of the show is Sex And The City, not Sex In The City, not Sex On The City. Sex And The City or SATC.

Ok, now let's move on to the next guy from the show we can learn from; Aidan Shaw.

Aidan first meets Aidan in Season 3 episode 35: No Ifs, Ands or Butts. She goes down to his furniture store to meet him after seeing an article on him in the paper. Aidan's first plus is that he is somewhat aristic as well as able to do things with his hands. Both of these traits are attractive to women. Anything you can show a girl that conveys that you see the world in a creative,artistic way is a positive. In fact, it's something everyone should try to do. this doesn't mean you have to go out and buy a paint by numbers set or learn the guitar. Instead it means that you need to figure out how you can bring creativity and beauty to the mundane things in your life. As some of the routine stacks I've been making recently can attest to, you can make anything sound artsy, even computer programming. It's also very masculine to be able to fix things around the house or create things with your bare hands. Masculinity is one of the 4 cornerstones of my new model for Natural Attraction.

Aidan's second big plus comes when he tells Carrie he can't date a smoker. Here he demonstrates personal boundaries and standards. Instead of being taken aback by a somewhat unreasonable request, Carrie tries to quit smoking cold turkey. This demonstrates the incredible power of setting boundaries and having rules. One of the things I always do with women is give them my rules. Now granted, some of these are made up as I go along, but for the most part they are things I won't tolerate on a date, a one night stand or a relationship. Guys often wonder why jerks get women. The reason is NOT that the jerk's rude, anti-social behavior is attractive, it's that jerks and naturals tend to be selfish and impose their own rules, standards and values on an interaction with women. Aidan does this here and if you've ever come off "too nice" you need to do the same,

Aidan also controls the pace of physical escalation. In fact there's a whole episode where Carrie freaks out because Aidan hasn't tried to sleep with her after 3 whole dates. Now while my own dating philosophy is diametrically opposed to waiting for sex. The reason being that until sex happens, I truly do believe you're dealing with a girl's representative, not her. But Aidan decides he wants to wait because he's sick of being single and things don't seem to work for him when he rushes. It's super important that you take control of physical escalation. Even if you're making girls wait. As men we are responsible for any steps forward, as well as the pacing, and timing of any escalation.

Unfortunately Aidan has one BIG problem. Pun intended. Because like Steve he pushes the relationship faster than it's ready to go. Carrie ends up having a 3 week affair with Mr Big. It's even foreshadowed in the show when Aidan asks Carrie to meet his parents and Carrie realizes that she's acting aloof and Aidan is acting like she did with Big. Women are not attracted to needy men, even if they really like them. This is why taking your time in a relationship is the BEST advice I could give guys out there. Don't be in too big of a rush to hit any milestones. Your relationships will go better when the girl is pushing things forward. It's our job to push things forward physically and then to keep seeing the girl casually until she wants to make things more serious. Remember what we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.

This all boils to a head at Charlotte's first wedding and Carrie and Aidan break up for the first time. But it won't be the last...

After cheating on him and breaking his heart once, Carrie decides she wants Aidan back. It all starts because of a bar named Scout that Aidan co-owns with the subject of our first breakdown Steve. How they met and decided to go into business together, never really gets discussed. Anyway Carrie arranges a group date so that Miranda can be her saftey net. After the date and Aidan telling her he can't be in a relationship with her again. He takes her back. The lesson here is to stick to your intuition about women. If a girl hurts you really badly once, chances are she will do it again down the line. A lot of guys get trapped by their own emotions into thinking that they belong with one girl, or that eventually their girlfriend or wife will change. The unfortunate truth is that you can't change people until they're ready to change.

Immediately after they're back together Mr Big calls while they're having sex. Awkward. Then Aidan blows Carrie off to "hang out with the guys". Carrie shows up to surprise him, only to find him flirting with a waitress at the bar. This is a stupid thing Aidan does. If you're in a relationship or on a date and a girl does something you don't like, don't punish her by flirting with other girls. It just looks petty. Instead actaully talk about what's bothering you. One of the reasons I never seem to have problems managing between 3-10 girls all the time, is that I talk about the problems I have with girls when I have them. I don't let things fester. I'm a big believer in openness and honesty with women. Not playing stupid games to make them feel bad.

The final death knoll for Aidan and Carrie comes later, starting in Episode 60 where Carrie finds her building going co-op. Aidan offers to buy the place and move in and when he does Carrie finds a very ugly engagement ring. This leads her to very sanely vomit. One of the reasons I love SATC, is scenes like that one. Carrie is the first heroine of a TV show who isn't perfect. In fact Carrie may be the most realistic woman on TV. Except for the fact that she never exercises during any of the 6 seasons and has a 6 pack... Point is most women have weird emotional reactions like this, from time to time. It's not crazy it's just women :) Again Aidan makes the mistake of pushing things forward, just because. Eventually Carrie actually says yes to the engagement. And that's where Aidan gets the final wound of the series.

This happens in Episode 63. After a charity fundraiser, Aidan tries to get Carrie to marry him that night. Because he says " He wants the whole world to know she's his." Carrie realizes that he still doesn't trust her and he realizes that she doesn't want to get married. This is actually one of the more realistic breakups on TV. There wasn't some crazy lover running in making some grand romantic gesture, there wasn't a "break" or a lack of love. It was simply two people who weren't right for each other. Which is what usually happens in real life. Even if people are in love. That's one of the things that the world doesn't like to talk about. The idea that even if you're good with women, or attractive, or smart, charming and all around amazing like myself :) You're not always going to be right for the person you're dating, meeting in a bar or sleeping with. And that's ok. There's something like 6 billion people on Earth there's more than enough people you can be happy with to try to make things work with someone you're not happy with. And that's the lesson of Aidan Shaw.

Next time, we'll be talking about Trey Mcdougal and male sexual issues.

S

14 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:57 AM

    Sinn - great series or articles. Really appreciate the insights.

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  2. Wow, how fun, Sinnster, I really like this idea of talking about the guys on Sex and the City. Aidan did go from being extremely super hot when Carrie first met him to kinda "letting himself go" by the time they had that fried chicken scene.

    I am perturbed by this:

    "Now while my own dating philosophy is diametrically opposed to waiting for sex. The reason being that until sex happens, I truly do believe you're dealing with a girl's representative, not her."

    Cuz apparently under this philosophy the "real me" has been nonexistent for the better part of five years now. ;)

    xoxo,
    Erika from www.awakeningfromthedream.blogspot.com

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  3. Anonymous1:00 PM

    It was a shame that Aiden was second best in the series, in my opinion but just made little mistakes (to him) that were huge (to Carrie). I agree that Carrie was the most "real" out of anything resembling SATC.

    He had it going for him except for a few things and then as soon as he started to push things, it became a snowball effect.

    No one is saying that you can't care for your girl and want to share everything with her, but it's only going to happen if she wants/asks for it. Giving it to her unexpectedly can make her uncomfortable and make you seem like you're hiding something (seen as being insecure). It's a silly thing and a small thing but Sinn is right. Never progress anything unless she's mentioned it. And even then, I personally feel like it's a two steps forward, one step back kind of thing. The tension has to be there.

    Petty things like flirting with someone else because something happened at home is a perfect example of just doing the wrong thing.

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  4. Dude, I used to question the sexuality of guys who watched this show.

    Now you're making me want to watch it...

    Maybe I had a limiting belief about Sex and the City?

    www.entropypua.com

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  5. Anonymous5:35 PM

    Yeah I watched this while on breaks in Iraq, good show. Steve and Bigg are the two top male characters to me.

    Charlotte is the badest out of all the females by far. I don't know if it's the hair or the southern belle thing, but no condom for me when I get het ;)

    Samatha might be involved in the threeway ;p Just cause she's a freak too...

    ~Javier F.~

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  6. Anonymous7:11 PM

    I don't really understand the point of rehashing the plots of old sex and the city episodes. the show is horrible, and I hate even more becuase and old girlfriend used to make me watch it.

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  7. Anonymous7:12 PM

    what's next are you going to go over episodes of the hills?

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  8. Anonymous9:10 AM

    Well said. Another great post. Basically no matter how fantastic you become with "picking up" women, many of us end up making the same mistakes when it comes to being in an actual relationship. I myself can be found guilty of trying to move things too fast.

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  9. Anonymous9:38 AM

    Utterly terrific, I'm a fan of this 5 part thread.

    One comment: is the phrase meant to be "death knell" instead of "death knoll". I'm not sure myself.

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  10. Anonymous11:51 AM

    This was an interesting quote "Remember what we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly." Thanks!

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  11. Anonymous5:43 AM

    Sex and the city Episodes are suprab,espacially name of the show "sex and the city"! what a name! what a Sexy Show!!

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  12. Anonymous12:03 PM

    I really like Sex and the City TV Show very much. Its my and my mother favorite show. I always catch our favorite episode online.

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  13. Anonymous10:40 AM

    This comedy drama series, adapted from the book by New York columnist Candace Bushnell, centers around four single women who carve to the core of the Big Apple. I have seen Sex and the City Episodes several times on net and really like the concept.

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