Carrie meets Miranda's ex Skipper, a sweet guy who is getting desperate as all women seem to turn him down in favor of jerks - like Kevin, the bossy colleague Miranda is dating right then. When she confesses this to her friends, this contradiction bugs her too. Sam declares monogamy fits none of them, as its high expectations are never met. To everyone's surprise, Charlotte takes that advice to the extreme, double-dating two fine men - till they find out and walk out on her together. After a few lonely weeks without Big, Carrie invites John, her dependable rebound-lover just-for-sex who always repairs her self-esteem, and wonders why she never tried committing to him, so the next time they actually go out for dinner, which only proves their conversation is as uninspiring as their sex is enjoyable; the following movie is their last date ever.

Carrie can't understand why Aidan doesn't want to sleep with her, and then feels jaded when she finds out that Aidan doesn't go for sex for the old-fashioned reason he is still romantic. She wonders if modern Manhattan girls like her are just sluts, and is he serious, or, as Samantha suggests, becoming just a friend? Charlotte has a great lover, a gentle gentleman, with one flaw: without knowing it, he calls her a bitch and whore during sex; when she tells the poor boy, he's as horrified as she, and struck impotent. Miranda discovers she has chlamydia, so she calls all her 42 former partners, and Steve suffers an intimate test despite being monogamous. One of Samantha's countless dates accidentally allowed a violent robber into her posh building; as soon as the other tenants find out, she feels shunned...