The 'Mr. Big' Paradox: Troubled Men, Desperate Women

Mr. Big.

In our beloved TV show Sex and the City, Mr. Big is the most troubled, coldest and even the most brutal character constantly breaking Carrie’s heart.

Until after a long time, he did not properly tell Carrie that he loved and cared about her and even worse, he did not show even the hint of these emotions. He did not care about what was valuable to Carrie. And when he miraculously decided to start caring about her, he did it after when it started to mean almost nothing to Carrie. During the relationship, he did not let Carrie leave some of her belongings in his apartment and he always felt bothered with the idea of Carrie’s toothbrush standing next to his. He preferred to make Carrie wait for him in the foyer of his apartment’s building over giving her a spare key. He did not even ask Carrie’s opinion when he decided to go to Paris for good, although they were in a relationship. Carrie’s toothbrush was almost like a burden; however, he did not hesitate to marry another woman. He later cheated on that woman with Carrie. He suddenly realized how important Carry was to him when Carrie was in a stable and happy relationship with Aidan. He even tried to confuse her, disturbed her, but at the same time he was dating to other women.

After a decade when Mr. Big and Carrie finally decided to get married, Mr. Big never showed up at the wedding venue.

Despite all these and other terrible things that Mr. Big did to Carrie during all ninety-four episodes and two movies, Carrie always forgave him, found ways to empathize with him.

Yes, I know this is just a TV show.

But what is important is and what I think as the reason of why most of the women love Sex and the City that much is that the TV show clearly and cleverly represents a good portion of us: women who want or have wanted Mr. Big in some part of their lives.

For a long time, my best friends and I spent most of our times with this kind of relationships. We have expected men like Mr. Big to change. We have analyzed every sentence, action and mimic of them for the purpose of finding a piece of love or a sign that they really care about us. We have manufactured excuses on behalf of Mr. Big’s to cover their mess. Our sentences were full of “maybes”. “Maybe, he is dealing with some big problems about his family which he needs to keep as secret.” “Maybe, he has suffered from a childhood trauma which now makes it hard for him to engage with somebody too quickly.” “Maybe, he is deadly ill and has three months to live.”

Actually, nobody was ill and there were no family secrets. (A childhood trauma? Maybe.) It was just us who were desperately suffering from the Mr. Big Paradox.

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What is the Mr. Big Paradox?

When we think of a healthy and perfect relationship, we describe a partner with whom we can have deep conversations, a partner who cares about us and does not hesitate to show and tell this openly. We dream of little surprises. We dream of someone who can take care of us when we are, say, sick. Someone we can have fun with. Someone who can get along well with our closest friends. Someone who understands us, are able to take responsibility when it is needed. We want him to be good-looking, charming with a proper job, preferably making good money.

It seems like we want Aidan Shaw.

But we also want passion.

And I believe, the desire for passion is the part where men like Aidan Shaw who has all the personal traits, I have just listed lost the game.

Because, although we would all certainly agree that Aidan Shaw has almost everything we wished for, we cannot stop imagining about Mr. Big. We perceive our troubled relationship with Mr. Big as more passionate. Adventurous.

This is the Mr. Big Paradox.

He does not make us happy but, we cannot stop chasing him.

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I could not help but wonder…why?

Do not women always say they search for true love and happiness? So, why they so desperately “need” someone like Mr. Big?

Why Aidans are not enough?

Once, obviously asking herself the same question, Carrie said to her best friend Miranda that “the irony is Aidan’s acting exactly how I wish Big would have behaved” and that “she is acting like Big”. Miranda’s answer is something to consider seriously: “Maybe you don’t believe it’s for real unless somebody plays hard to get.”

Is this the main reason of women’s Mr. Big paradox and of why we are expecting Mr. Big to act like Aidan even though we actually have Aidan?

I do not know how scientists would explain all these, but I think there is some truth to what Miranda said. A man who is patient, direct, knows what he really wants in life, is acting reasonably, showing his respect and love without any doubt, does not hesitate to share his life with a woman and does not see it some kind of obligation which is mandated by some people holding guns to his head is like the prince charming in a fairy tale that he cannot exist in real life. I am not sure if this is a result of a social construct or a default in brain which makes men so confused about women and behave in this troubled way or if this is just a baseless belief only a portion of women has, but in either way it makes it harder to stop searching for or creating a problem when an Aidan Shaw states his interest in us. Is he weak? What is his problem? Does he have a problem? Did he ever have a proper relationship before?

On the other hand, I believe that these troubled and “mysterious” characters somehow make us believe that they are unique in some sense and therefore valuable and that we need to “get” them although, in reality, the only unique thing is their mesmerizing success to manage to act like a little boy and convince others that their immature actions are the product of their perfect supernatural character which you can only truly see by spending too much effort.

The desperate journey to finally manage to have these persons in our lives feeds our biggest dreams. While we are desperately imagining how our lives will be once we get together with Mr. Big, we are mostly repeating our perception of reality in our minds, a perception which is highly distorted by the existence of impossible, but perfect, dreams. These dreams are so perfect that by the time, we really get starting to believe that at the end of the route Mr. Big will deliver what we have dreamt of. But we are not asking the question of why he is not acting in line with our imagination NOW.

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Whatever is the reason, there is one thing for sure: A man who is the perfect mixture of Aidan’s acting and Mr. Big’s seemingly powerful, mysterious character does not exist. More importantly he cannot exist. Because the very reason behind Mr. Big’s selfish, rude and unstable actions are also the same with the reason of why Mr. Big does not and cannot behave like Aidan. This is actually that simple. It is also true for Aidan. He knows what he wants and does not hesitate to show it. There is no need for mystery or power plays.

My grandmother always says that one should marry someone who loves her, not the other way around, and this is the only important thing. I am not saying that we should invest in a relationship where we do not have anything inside to be called as love but I say maybe when we see a potential Aidan, we should just pay attention and give a chance to him rather than constantly searching for a hidden problem and also, maybe we should stop giving all the effort to a Mr. Big who does not have even the possibility of turning into an Aidan no matter how much time we spent searching for his hidden good heart.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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