Was Carrie Bradshaw Actually a Bad Friend on Sex and the City?

By Alexus Mosley

Photo Credit: HBO / Darren Star Productions

Carrie Bradshaw may have been our favorite New York columnist, but as a friend? The record is a little more complicated.

Across six seasons of Sex and the City, Carrie could be funny, loyal, and deeply affectionate. She also had a habit of making other people’s problems about herself, ignoring boundaries and expecting a level of grace she didn’t always return. So was Carrie actually a bad friend?

We’re leaning yes.

She Expected Charlotte to Help Fix Her Financial Mess

When Carrie realized she couldn’t afford the down payment on her apartment, Samantha and Miranda offered to help. Charlotte didn’t. Reasonable, right?

Carrie didn’t think so. She confronted Charlotte for not offering her money, even though Carrie’s financial crisis was largely the result of years of spending beyond her means.

Charlotte eventually gave her the engagement ring from Trey to use toward the apartment, which was generous. The fact that Carrie made her feel guilty enough to get there is the problem.

She Set Skipper Up With Miranda Knowing It Probably Wouldn’t Work

Carrie introduced Skipper to Miranda even though she had a pretty good sense that Miranda wasn’t especially interested.

For Carrie, it was casual matchmaking. For Skipper, it became a relationship he took much more seriously.

It’s a small example, but a revealing one. Carrie occasionally treated other people’s romantic lives like entertainment rather than considering who might actually get hurt.

Stanford Sometimes Felt More Like an Accessory Than a Best Friend

Carrie loved Stanford, but the friendship wasn’t always especially balanced.

In Season 1, she even goes home with a man Stanford had been interested in, which is not exactly best-friend behavior.

More broadly, Stanford was often brought into Carrie’s world when she needed company, comic relief, or someone to listen. His own romantic life and insecurities didn’t always receive the same level of attention.

She Sent Aidan to Help Miranda Instead of Going Herself

This one remains painful.

When Miranda injured herself and called Carrie for help, Carrie sent Aidan instead.

The result? A mortified Miranda ended up being seen naked while vulnerable and injured by her friend’s boyfriend.

Carrie technically made sure help arrived, but Miranda didn’t call for whoever happened to be available. She called Carrie.

Sometimes friendship means showing up yourself.

She Judged Samantha Despite Expecting Samantha Never to Judge Her

Samantha was arguably the least judgmental member of the group, especially where Carrie was concerned.

When Carrie admitted she was having an affair with the very married Big, Samantha didn’t lecture her. She listened.

Carrie wasn’t always quite so generous in return.

Whether reacting to Samantha having sex with a delivery guy or recoiling at some of her sexual choices, Carrie could suddenly become surprisingly prudish for a woman who literally wrote a sex column.

That hypocrisy is especially noticeable because Samantha routinely gave Carrie the exact kind of unconditional friendship Carrie seemed to expect from everyone else.

She Made Everything About Big

You could practically set a watch by it.

Miranda, Charlotte or Samantha would introduce a completely unrelated problem and, somehow, Carrie would find her way back to Big.

Her relationship with him consumed not only her thoughts but an enormous amount of her friendships. Her friends repeatedly listened to the same cycles of confusion, heartbreak, reconciliation and more heartbreak.

Everyone needs friends during a bad relationship. But at some point, friendship stops being reciprocal when three people are permanently serving as your unpaid relationship therapists.

She Dragged Her Friends Through the Consequences of the Big Affair

Carrie’s affair with Big was her decision.

Yet Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte repeatedly had to help her navigate the emotional fallout from it, including the collapse of her relationship with Aidan and the chaos surrounding Big and Natasha’s marriage.

Again, friends are supposed to support each other through mistakes.

But Carrie had a tendency to make catastrophic decisions and then rely heavily on her friends to help manage the consequences.

She Expected Her Friends to Meet Her Emotional Needs on Demand

Carrie loved her friends, but she often treated their availability as a given.

Whether she needed relationship advice, financial reassurance or immediate emotional support, the girls were expected to be there.

When someone else needed her, however, Carrie’s romantic life, work or inconvenience occasionally came first.

That doesn’t make her incapable of being a good friend. It makes her an inconsistent one.

So, Was Carrie Bradshaw a Bad Friend?

Kind of.

Carrie wasn’t malicious. She genuinely loved Miranda, Charlotte, Samantha, and Stanford, and there are plenty of moments throughout the series when she showed up for them.

But love doesn’t automatically equal good friendship.

Carrie could be self-centered, judgmental, entitled, and remarkably unaware of how much emotional labor the people around her were providing.

Maybe that’s part of why the character still works.

Carrie Bradshaw wasn’t written to be the perfect best friend. She was written to be messy, occasionally infuriating, and deeply human.

But if we were Miranda waiting naked on the bathroom floor after calling Carrie for help?

We’d still be holding a grudge.

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