Pop culture
Did Sex and the City lie to me?
We ran Carrie's men through New York's numbers. Mr. Big is real, but there are only about 580 of him in the whole state.
Sex and the City sold a generation of viewers a picture of New York dating: four single women, endless brunches, and a steady supply of men, including one very rich, very tall, slightly older man with a driver. So we ran the show's men through the meter's model for New York State. The data covers the whole state, not just Manhattan.
The good news: New York is full of single men
New York State has about 1.51 million single or divorced straight men aged 25 to 55. About 374,000 of them are in their 40s. The show didn't lie about the volume.
Mr. Big
Our reading of Big: single or divorced, straight, aged 40 to 50, at least 6 feet tall, earning at least $1 million a year. We let the criminal record and body type go.
That leaves about 580 men in the whole state, or 1 in 646 single straight men in their 40s. Ask for a lean-to-average build as well and it's about 140. Big exists, but you're not going to bump into him on the street.
Aidan
The furniture maker: single or divorced, straight, no criminal record, aged 30 to 40, 6 feet or taller, lean to average build, earning between $50,000 and $180,000. That gives about 13,700 men, roughly 24 Aidans for every Big.
Charlotte's list
Charlotte wanted a Park Avenue doctor. Call it single or divorced, straight, no record, aged 35 to 45, at least 6'2", earning $250,000 or more. That gives about 1,480 men in the state.
So, did it lie?
About the men, mostly not. New York really does have a huge pool of single men, and the Aidans are common. The fantasy was the combination: height, age and a seven-figure income in one man. The income rule alone takes Big's pool from hundreds of thousands to hundreds.
Where the show stretched the truth was money. In season 4, Carrie realises she has spent about $40,000 on shoes and can't afford to buy her own apartment. The meter can't help with that one.
The characters are fictional and the settings above are our own reading of the show. Counts are for New York State, using national height, body and orientation data with New York's own population, relationship status and income figures.
Run your own list on the meter
Estimates come from the same model as the meter: official population, census, health-survey and tax data for each country, combined age by age. Filters are treated as independent within each age, so treat the results as estimates, not a head count. The full method and sources are under "How it's calculated" on the meter.