Love in last seasons

I just don't get it.

I was reading the Episode Guide of Sex and the City's last season and - oh, yeah! that might be certifiably crazy (reading the episode guide online I mean)! I can't dispute that (especially when I have tons of other stuff to get done as well!) It's just that I like reading the episode guides of shows I can't watch. To be honest, in a way I prefer *reading* the episode guides to watching them - I don't have to go through the suspense of waiting to know what happens next in the subsequent episode.

Anyway, to get back to Sex and the City, Mr. Big "suddenly" goes after Carrie in the series finale. Yes, after turning away from her for the last 8 seasons (or was it 6?), he's hit by a sudden bolt of lightning and realizes that Carrie is the girl for him! So what does he do? Pack his bags and rush to Paris to search for his lady-love (who had moved there just the episode before) in the last show of the last season.

Does he go after her while she was still in New York? Of course not! That wouldn't make for a great finish would it? It has to be the last episode of the last season filmed in Paris to garner enough eyeballs!

I feel like saying, "Give me a break!" I mean did he suddenly wake up one fine New York morning and decide that this is it, "It's get Carrie" day?!

(For the uninitiated, Carrie and Mr. Big have had an on-again, off-again relationship with it definitely being off in Season 4, 5 or 6 (don't remember which!))

Where am I going with this?

Be it 'Sex and the City' or 'Friends', why is it that the lead characters of both these hugely popular pop culture shows are hit by a bolt from Cupid only in the last episode of the last show?

Is it only an eyeball grabbing exercise or does it have some basis in truth? Do you really wake up one day and all of a sudden decide that it's the you're-in-love day?

I don't get it.

I definitely do not have a vast experience walking the minefield of love and relationships but logic, past relationship, and something inside me rebels against the decide-you're-in-love theory.

All of a sudden, how do you know that this is it? How can love dawn upon you in a sudden moment of enlightenment?

In fact the more I think of it the more I feel that being in love or being in a relationship is akin to a state of constant simmer. A meeting, a conversation, even your first kiss is just a starting point. You talk, you converse, you laugh, you joke and then suddenly one day you fight. Hurting, you take a step back. You think, you talk again, and take a few more tentative steps forward. You're scared but you let the other person privy to your darkest moments and fears, to dreams you feel are too lofty but which still dog your mind.

I guess what I'm wondering is - Do you go through all of this because you have already decided or you "know" that you are in love? Or does love dawn upon you while you're in the midst of a conversation or a fight? Or does love leave you startled one day with the force of enlightenment?

The reason Sex and the City rankled is because it ties up everything neatly - too neatly. Don't get me wrong. I love tied-with-big-bow finishes and I guess at heart I am a romantic. But life just is not this neat.

It does not have a 'last' season where you suddenly realize that you're in love or have been in love all along.

It's a little bit more painful and a little more confusing... It kind of leaves you wishing that sometimes, just sometimes, you were on the last episode of the last season of a pop show!

But then again.... maybe that wouldn't be as much fun!