Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) is the narrator. Each episode is structured around her train of thought while writing her weekly column, "Sex and the City", for the fictitious newspaper the New York Star. A member of the New York glitterati, she is a club/bar/restaurant staple known for her unique fashion sense. Carrie lives in a one-room (studio) apartment in an Upper East Side brownstone. Stanford Blatch, a gay talent agent from an aristocratic family (played by Willie Garson), is Carrie's best friend outside of the other three women sex.....

Carrie is entangled with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), whose real name is revealed in the final episode to be John James Preston, in a tumultuous, on-and-off-again relationship. (In a running joke, whenever Carrie is about to introduce Mr. Big on-camera to another character, she is interrupted before she can say his name.) He is the reason for many of Carrie's breakdowns as he never seems ready to fully commit to her. He is once-divorced by the time the series opens and is a prominent businessman and an aficionado of jazz and cigars

Carrie and Big break up, when he leaves New York for a work secondment to Paris and does not show willingness for Carrie to accompany him or continue a long-distance relationship, citing commitment issues. Carrie is heartbroken and some months later she runs into Big at a party in the Hamptons; he is accompanied by his 20-something year old girlfriend, Natasha, whom he met in Paris. Despite this, Carrie attempts to be friends with Big, however this goes awry when he tells her that he and Natasha are getting married; something he'd never considered with Carrie bbw sex....