Sex and the City: Skipper Deserved a Better Friend Than Carrie

This article contains spoilers for Sex and the City.

Skipper Johnston (Ben Weber) is a website developer introduced in Sex and the City as Carrie’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) friend, and a hopeless romantic. Sure, he falls into the “nice guy” trope, bemoaning how hard it is for guys like him to be taken seriously in the New York dating world, but compared to every other guy introduced in the series’ pilot, he seems genuine, and deserved a better friend than Carrie.

Carrie didn’t have to set him up with Miranda (Cynthia Nixon). In fact, it probably would have been better for everyone if she didn’t. As soon as she offers to introduce them in the first episode of the series, she says in her signature voiceover “Miranda was gonna hate Skipper. She’d think he was mocking her with his sweet nature and decide he was an asshole. The way she decided all men were assholes.”

If Carrie knew from the beginning that Miranda and Skipper weren’t going to vibe well, why did she bother setting them up? Just because Skipper asked if she had any friends to set him up with, doesn’t mean she had to, especially if she didn’t think things would go anywhere. She already started saying no to Skipper before changing her mind and deciding to introduce them. Why not just offer to be Skipper’s wing-woman for a night and help him meet a stranger that’s not connected to her friend group at all?

But no matter her reasoning, this scenario proves that Carrie is a messy bitch who loves drama, no matter the cost to her relationships, and has been since the beginning. She doesn’t even try to set up a proper date for them, and instead invites Skipper along on her girls’ night out to a trendy new club called Chaos.

Now this isn’t to knock the group-hang approach to setting up friends – there are definitely ways to do this right that can help those being set-up feel more at-ease – but even based on what little we know about Skipper so far, it doesn’t seem like a club called Chaos is somewhere that mild-mannered Skipper would feel super comfortable.

When they arrive at the club, it’s clear that inviting Skipper along was an afterthought. Carrie pretty much leaves him to fend for himself with Miranda while Carrie does what she came to do – try to meet a guy. It’s also not clear whether or not Carrie even told Miranda that she was bringing Skipper along to try and set them up. It seems like she just left them to figure things out one way or another without any thought of the consequences.

Even though Miranda and Skipper do kind of hit it off, he definitely seems to be more into her than she is into him. And Carrie absolutely knew this would happen. Which is why when she starts to get caught in-between them an episode later, it’s hilarious that she says “I believe there is a curse put on the head of anybody who tries to fix up their friends,” like there’s some cosmic plot against her and she’s not just facing the consequences of her own actions.

Miranda and Skipper see each other off and on through season 2, but once Skipper finally accepts that things will never get serious between them, he calls things off, and is never heard from again. It makes sense that Carrie would take Miranda’s side in the split. They’re closer as friends than she and Skipper are, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel fair to Skipper.

Obviously, Carrie isn’t responsible for how Miranda and Skipper’s relationship ended. They’re both adults who can make their own choices. But Carrie did set them up knowing they were looking for very different things in a relationship and essentially abandoned Skipper when things unsurprisingly didn’t work out.

Hopefully Skipper found better friends and partners after he stopped hanging out with Carrie. Skipper isn’t totally blameless in this scenario, but he still deserved a better friend than she was to him. He trusted her enough with his heart to let her set him up on a date, and she didn’t seem to care enough to actually find someone that would be compatible.

All six seasons of Sex and the City are available to stream on Netflix now.