Cha, cha cha, cha cha, cha cha. Spla-shy bus, cha cha cha!
Lights up on Carrie, with softly tousled bed-head and a pale eyelet slip-dress on, waiting in a bar. She's alone, and waiting rather anxiously for her "first blind date of the century." Uch, what could be worse? Well, she could be tapped for some horrible blind date reality show; that would be worse. She calls out to one guy passing by, ignores the lascivious eye of another across the bar, smiles shyly at one with enough phone headgear on to communicate with aliens, and generally "hopes for the best, expects the worst." Duh. And wow, more optimism. Will it be in vain?
Yes. Carrie rants to her friends the day that she "got stood up." Wow, she's wearing a cross between my grandmother's afghan and a Cosby sweater. So not pretty! Charlotte, in a white-and-red argyle twin-set thing, says she's "sure there's a perfectly good explanation" for the blow-off. Yes, I have it: Guys are chicken and they suck, generally? Now let me lead you all in a rousing chorus of "I Am Woman." Oh, am I ever uppity. Carrie says that "blind dates are like job interviews with cocktails," and she thinks she's "done." Miranda says that yesterday she said she was going to stop eating bread, and yet she just ordered pancakes, which is a really nice way of saying, "Yeah, right." Carrie wonders hypothetically why she'd need stupid dates with stupid guys when she can have two tons of fun with her friends, all sitting around her right now? Samantha pats her shoulder and tells Carrie she's "cute," but there's no way she's gonna fuck her. Not even by accident? What if Carrie slipped Sam a roofie? And thanks, writers, for reminding us that we endure [awful, boring, et cetera] dates for the possibility of having sex. It's the fucking truth! Now let us never whine about Why Dating Sucks again. Remember, we're just animals. Animals who like to fuck, and to shop. Yes, that's the Urban Woman. But Charlotte says we date so as "not to wind up old maid[s]." Oh, riiight! Because it would suck not to have an old crotchety man hanging around when you're really hitting your stride during Friday-night bingo. Carrie taps her head to drill it in: "Must not wind up old maid, must not wind up old maid...does anyone have a pen?" Hee. Is this going to be her new catch phrase? It's okay. I'm sure I've told this anecdote in a recap before, but once when I was leaning (elegantly, or so I thought) on the bar at Bob & Barbara's, a guy approached me and asked, "Hey, drunk girl, got a pen?" I wasn't that drunk, and worst of all, I didn't have a pen. And what do I do for a living? Right. I write. So Carrie, I recognize the sarcasm tags, but never let yourself be known as The Girl That Didn't Have A Pen. Mir rants about the unfair standards that exist; women are "spinsters," but men are "bachelors." Yeah, but didn't La Bushnell herself write about how tacky it is for men to continue to act twenty-five (dating lots and never settling down) when they're fortyish? She did. And -- "spinster"? When's the last time that hoary term saw daylight? Was it when the writers were wearing stone underwear and riding their mini-dinosaurs to work?