Fake Fendi Bags, Lying Assistants & Why LA Is the Land of Beautiful Illusions — S3E14 with Aisha Mannering

About This Episode

In Season 3 episode fourteen of And Just Like That… We Found Therapy, host Isabel MV is joined by LA native, founder of Main Design and Pontoon, Aisha Mainwaring — girlfriend of Isabel's childhood best friend and the most overqualified guest for this episode — to unpack Sex and the City's "Sex and Another City." The girls are still in LA. Carrie gets swept up by a man who turns out to be house-sitting in someone else's mansion. Samantha goes to a party at the Playboy Mansion and gets thrown out for stealing her own fake Fendi back. Charlotte gets offered a boob job. Miranda reunites with a New York friend who has lost 30 pounds and is spitting out his steak at a restaurant.

What We Cover

• Are people in LA actually happier, or do they just have better optics? Aisha's honest answer

• Why nobody walks in LA — and what the hike culture is actually about

• The after party experience: is it really that transactional, and does social media kill the vibe?

• Vince Vaughn's character lying about the car, the house and the job: is it lying or is it just LA acting?

• Why the line between truth and reality is particularly blurry in a city full of people performing their lives

• The Valley fake bag market: why the same bag loses all its appeal in a trunk full of them

• Fake designer bags, conscious consumerism and why Aisha would rather have something nobody else has

• Charlotte getting offered a boob job at the Playboy Mansion — and what she took home from it instead

• Miranda and Lou: could she have brought a little more LA energy back to New York with her?

• Samantha accusing the Playboy bunny of stealing her fake Fendi: the lesson she probably needed

• The Dan Bilzerian generation vs. the Hugh Hefner era: what got lost

• If you want the Carrie-in-LA experience, Aisha has one piece of advice — and it involves Raya

About Our Guest

Aisha Mainwaring is the founder and CEO of Main Design, a social media and marketing agency focused on conscious consumerism, and Pontoon, a media platform for women who live a global lifestyle. Find her on Instagram at @aisha_mainwaring and find both brands at @pontoon_co and @maindesign.co on Instagram. All links in the show notes.

Transcript

Welcome back Boundary Babes. I am so excited to bring this week's episode to you guys. I am joined by a very, very, very special guest, Aisha Mainwaring, who is the girlfriend of one of my best friends from childhood.

She grew up in LA, she's half Australian, so she had a lot to say about LA, and I love it.

I have always been very curious about what goes on and all this kind of like after parties, movie premieres, all the industry that is out there back in the day, and she had a lot to say. I hope you guys enjoy it. I'll see you on the other side.

I love you all. Bye. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of And Just Like That We Found Therapy.

I am your host, Isabel MV., and I am super excited to be joined today by a very special guest, Aisha Mannering.

She is the founder and CEO of Mane Design, social media and marketing agency that was founded in 2019, that focuses on educating and inspiring the next generation around conscious consumerism.

Most importantly, she is a girlfriend of my best friend from childhood as she was raised in LA, so she is overqualified for this episode. How are you, Aisha?

I'm great, thank you. What a beautiful intro. Overqualified.

I will try to live up to that.

Because today we're here to discuss Season 3, Episode 14 of Sex and the City, Sex and Another City, and this is the second episode that our girls are spending in LA.

And I was making Aisha come up with a full list of potential guests for this episode. She was like, what about me? And I was like, done.

But we get introduced to the girls. They're still at the standard that was a hotel in the Hollywood Strip. I think that closed in 2021, sadly.

Fun fact, I almost had my suit 16 there.

Ah.

Seriously.

You were, you were a lot cooler than I was when I was 16.

She's very LA.

It's abnormal.

I'm very impressed. Either that or Chateau Marmont, you're like, yeah, you got the cool LA factor. But Carrie's getting bikini wax because LA is the land of eternal sunshine, which is also the land of the eternal bikini wax.

And Miranda is saying goodbye to Samantha and Carrie saying, I'm going to meet Letterman Blue, who is now a writer at a success sitcom. Fun fact, I think that we're alluding at the fact that it was Friends.

And Carrie and Samantha say, oh, we're going to go to this movie premiere and the after party. We will probably just go to the after party. I love this city.

So we cut into Miranda and Lou meeting at this super LA cafe. And Lou looks nothing like Miranda remembers. Allegedly, he's dropped like 30 pounds.

And Miranda is like, oh my God, like, should we go somewhere else? And he's like, no, let's stay here. They have excellent green tea infusions.

And Miranda's just in disbelief.

She's like, what the hell?

Like, if you weren't wearing that Knicks hat, I wouldn't recognize you. Like, what's up with you? And Lettman Lou is just like, I'm just very happy.

I think I was very miserable in New York. Hollywood suits me and I'm happy. Should we go on a hike?

So I have two questions for you. One, do you think that people in LA are generally happier than in New York?

You know, I've spent time in New York visiting, but I'm in no way, shape or form a New Yorker. So from an LA perspective, I think their lives are easier. So yes, to an extent.

Yeah.

I think there's two things happening.

In LA, everybody's chasing a dream. That's really hard to achieve. But I think the day-to-day optics of what their life looks like looks a lot better.

Does that equate to internal happiness? Not for everyone. In New York, I think the hustle and the grind in the day-to-day is hard, but that's part of the appeal.

So I think they're like where it is a badge of honor that their life is harder and they're more unhappy. Which makes no sense to me coming from LA. Like why would you want that?

I would choose LA all day, every day. But I also understand the realness of New York versus the fakeness of LA. Depends on the type of person you are and what makes you happy.

Totally.

I think there was this commercial for sunscreen or like this viral thing that was like where sunscreen that was like live in New York and live before it makes you too hard and live in the West Coast but leave before it makes you too lazy or something

like that. But you know I love LA. Okay and what is it with the hikes?

You don't walk in LA. Literally ever. Like you will genuinely get 50 steps a day if you don't intentionally walk.

So now that I'm like an adult who wants to get 10k steps a day, I understand the hikes. I'm not a hiker though. I'm done running in Canyon like three times in my life.

Like it's just not really my thing. No, like I don't need to go on a beach walk in San Monica at least. But I understand it for steps.

It's also very social. And then people want to go to the top and take an Instagram picture, you know. But I do think like you don't move your body unless you're going to a workout class or you're intentionally doing a hike or something like that.

Also LA, yes the beaches, blah, blah, blah. But it is hard to find nature in your day to day life.

So doing a hike is like kind of grounding and connects you to more natural world around you instead of just being in like the concrete jungle all the time. So I get the appeal.

And if you have a dog, I guess, and you're like not in a big space, you want to take your dog on a hike.

Yeah. I remember the first time I went to LA and I was staying with Jacobo in West Hollywood Hills. I don't know what was up, what year it was, but like Lyft and Uber didn't have internet or signal around there.

So whenever I tried to get an Uber to the Barry's Bootcamp in La Cienega, wherever, like the West Hollywood one, they would get lost. So I would have to walk and people would stop me all the time and say like, are you okay? Where are you going?

Because I was walking now.

Literally, people in Tufi make no sense.

But then also the first time that I did Runyon Canyon, I remember also feeling underdressed. Like people take it so seriously. And like it's all about the accessories.

The bigger the water bottle, the bigger the visor, the more you fit in.

But that's how you could tell the people that move to LA. They're not from LA. You know, if you're all dressed up to do Runyon.

Yeah, exactly. If you're dressed up to do Runyon, like, okay, your hometown is like Milwaukee or something, you know, like you're obviously not from California.

Okay, that makes me feel happier.

Yeah.

Okay, I'm going to switch to the next scene where Carrie and Samantha go to the after party.

They're skipping the movie premiere. They go up to the person at the line and she's like, what's your name? Are you on the list?

And like the attitude of the whole thing is brutal. And basically Carrie's like, listen, I'm press, but I was invited to the movie premiere. And she's like, okay, show me your ticket.

And she's like, oh, we didn't go to the movie premiere. Nobody goes to the movie premiere. She's like, everybody goes to the movie premiere.

You're not on the list. Get out of my face. And Samantha's like, do you know who she is?

And like, basically, it's like this thing that Carrie may be hot shit in New York, but she's a nobody in LA. I'm very curious. Is it really that brutal?

Because like in New York, it was this brutal, but it was more about how money are you willing to spend? Is it really that brutal in LA about like where people want to become somebody, they make you feel like a nobody?

People want to know if you're somebody so they can get something from you. I think that's what I would say. Like they're really nice to you upfront so they can assess what use they can extract out of you.

And then if they can't, they'll switch and be mean. And if they can, then you're their best friend. So I think in that scene, first of all, everybody does go to the movie for sure.

That's just a New York, LA difference. And nobody cares about you being a writer in New York if you're in LA. Like is your face on a billboard or not?

Like can you cast me in your next movie or not? That's what they care about. But I think people in LA are generally pretty nice.

Very incredibly. That's one of the biggest complaints you hear from people that move to LA. It's all transactional.

But I think there's a local side to LA that's not that way. I mean, I grew up there literally like elementary school, high school, all of it.

So I have a different perspective, but I think if you move to LA and you're placed in the middle of it trying to meet people, yeah, everybody's trying to get somewhere. And you know, they'll try and use you to get there. But people are pretty nice.

Everyone is pretty sunny and happy. And I think at first that can flip. If they can't get anything from you, absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, every time that I go to LA, I come back with like 10 more Instagram followers that seem like my best friend for half an hour, and then I never hear from them again.

Exactly.

Has this ever happened to you? That of like going to a party thinking that it's all good and well, and then they shut you down like that?

The only time I ever remember that happening, oh my God, this is such an embarrassing story. I was going to the Troubadour on the Troubadour Little Santa Monica, I think it is. Yeah.

And I was like 19 maybe, and I was with my boyfriend who was older, and I used a fake ID to get in, and got in, and then there was like a, you had to get a wristband for drinks or something, and one of our friends gave me a wristband, and the bouncer

The bar is too high for you.

At 19, I honestly, I feel like I got dragged. I remember once I switched clothes with a friend because she was kicked out, and I was like, I'll switch clothes with you.

They will never tell the difference that you're not a different person, and they came and they kicked us both out. I think they dragged, maybe me, maybe her, I don't remember.

That's so funny.

And a much less cooler venue.

Well, LA has its perks.

Okay. Then, as Carrie and Samantha are trying to figure out what to do because they're trying to get their car back from the valet and Samantha's like, it's going to take a fucking hour for them to retrieve our car again.

Carrie has met this guy who's Vince Vaughn. Apparently his name is Keith Travers and he's allegedly representing Matt Damon. So you know, he's tall.

He's just come out of like, Doing Swingers. I don't know if you know that movie, but he's hot stuff.

And they get back into the after party with him because he is like, I mean, to their eyes and my eyes, if I didn't know how it pans out, the key to everything that LA is supposed to be, glamour, after party VIP rooms, and we get into the after party.

I've always dreamed of this experience in LA. I've never had it. Is it really like that?

Do you get into the after party and it's like a who is who, and like there's a VIP room, and like everybody knows everybody in the industry?

Yes, absolutely. It really is like that. The caveat is it's not as fun as you would think because those settings are the most transactional.

So everybody's only talking to you to see who you are, what you can do for them, so on and so forth. If you find that fun, okay, amazing.

It's also now in the era of social media, like people are either taking photos or you're not allowed to take photos. I think social media and being so, what you're doing can be captured, has really tainted those experiences.

Like going to those parties back then when they were actually doing that episode would be so fun. I would die to do that. So fun.

In this day and age, it's not the same thing. Everybody knows who everybody is already and it's just kind of, you're not allowed to be as free and fun and just carefree in those types of settings.

It's so cool, but it's very stuffy and everybody tries so hard to be cool. The thing in LA is nobody dances, never. That to me, I'm such a dancer.

There's such a Latin community.

Yeah.

I guess that's a difference.

Yeah.

Not really in those rooms. Everybody's standing there too cool in their outfits. They're not letting loose and having fun, but I'm sure that was different back then when this episode is being filmed, which just sounds like the most fun thing ever.

Okay.

Then Samantha meets her celebrity crush, Hugh Hefner, before the truth got exposed or what was really going on at Playboy. Carrie gets asked out by Keith on a date and then he asks her, do you want to go into the VIP room?

And Carrie is like, yes, I want to go to the VIP room. And it looks so fun. She's met the hot dude that is super tall, that knows the people, has the in, and he had this table at the restaurant that she'd been trying to get into all week.

So I'm just really seething with envy as I'm watching this game. That has never happened to me.

Yeah. I mean, it is fun. Go to LA.

I'm sure it will.

I'm going with you next time.

Yeah. You just need the right person to open the right door.

But on the other coast, in the East Coast, Charlotte and Trey are coming back to their beautiful Upper East Side home, coming back from a Black Tie event.

And Charlotte is like, so how did I do? She's playing the dutiful wife and then she tries to initiate sex with Trey. And Trey shuts down and also shuts her down in a very rude way because Charlotte is trying to say like, maybe we could try Viagra.

And he's like, how could you say that? That is so dangerous for people with heart diseases. My father has a heart disease, a pass away from a heart attack.

And he goes for a run for the 17th time that week. What do you think about this scene? Cause it's so sad.

We've seen like maybe four episodes of Charlotte trying so hard and getting nowhere with this man.

It's so sad, but also Charlotte, what are you doing getting married before you've had sex with your husband? That to me is just diabolical insanity. So it's a little bit like...

It's delulu. It's delulu. It's like test drive the car before you buy it.

Like what are you doing? But I mean, I think it's so sad. This whole era of Charlotte just makes me really sad.

Like, no, no, cut that quickly. I mean, I guess she did. She cut it pretty quickly.

And then that's how she meets Harry. So it's all perfect the way it...

It's all perfect, but it's so sad. I am so sad because Trey, to me, he is like a great dude. He's handsome.

He has the pedigree. He loves Charlotte, but he's like, just talk about it. But God forbid somebody talks to a man about their penis and how it's wrong.

Totally.

Yeah, and he's such a like uptight, like waspy guy, you know, like, of course he's not gonna wear his heart on his sleeve, but yeah, it's so... It would change everything about your relationship and your marriage.

Yeah. So Charlotte, as she goes to water, carries plants or get her mail. She's like, you know what?

I'm sick and tired of this bullshit. I miss my girlfriend. So she jumps in a play and joins the girls in LA.

As she gets in, Carrie's like, all right, you can go and join the girls or buy the pool. I'm going house shopping with this dude named Keith. I'll see you later.

So we go on this shopping spree of houses with Carrie and Keith, and they get shown this beautiful house in, I guess, West Hollywood Hills for $3.2 million. I mean, I'm curious, do you think that this value, I thought $3 million for that house.

I don't know how many bedrooms it was, but I was like, okay, that's a steal.

A steal? Never. Oh my God.

Now a $3 million house would look like a shack.

Exactly.

Yeah, 100%.

Exactly. So a steal in the sense that like, you're getting a great deal.

Totally. Buy it.

Yes. I always get that wrong. But basically what I mean is like, yeah, cheap.

Yeah, cheap.

100%.

The floor, ceiling, windows and the hot tub, apparently.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. The pedigree of also being buy-in from an architect, that Carrie's just flirting with her teeth by the floor-to-ceiling window. And she says, my Brazilian mate me kiss him.

And my question to you here is, do you think that us women maybe sometimes let our guard down or accelerate things if we are wowed by this? I don't want to call it flashiness because that has negative connotations.

But if we see that the man is like successful, capital S.

I think if you're being... Women want to be wowed. Absolutely, of course.

Especially in those early days. Yeah, if you make an effort and put an effort into wowing her, she's gonna respect that and like that you're making that effort. I think that's totally fine.

Does that have to do with him being successful? I mean, that's very LA. Pull up in my rented Porsche to see the house that I'm not gonna buy.

Like, you know, none of that was like to infirm he has the keys. Like, you know that he's the successful X, Y, and Z.

So I think it's also Carrie, like getting swept up in vacation and like trying to move on from Big and Aiden and like wanting to have a fling. She was in the perfect zone to be taken by something like that, which is what she wanted. So why not?

Totally.

You're absolutely right. Okay. The girls are at brunch and they're talking about the contrast between New York and LA.

They talk a bit about the fact that it is very New York to have a crush on the neurotic guy because Woody Allen was still not canceled and very much involved back then.

Samantha says that she bought this Fendi baguette and she's like, Oh my God, look at it. It's so nice. It's fake.

And like there's this roar in the room. And Charlotte admits that her marriage is a fake Fendi bag, that they haven't had sex, they've been married for three months. And we get introduced to Carrie's column.

And she types into her little computer, men in LA were happier, houses were bigger, bags were great. When it comes to bags, men and cities, is it really what's outside that counts?

So here we circle back to the first theme that I think we touched upon. So do you think that people in LA are happier or at the optics of their lives, of a happier life, but they're fucking miserable?

I know that if I'm sitting in sunshine and taking care of my body and treating myself well versus like in a smoggy New York walking eight flights up the stairs, the groceries, I'm going to be happy in LA personally. But that's just me.

The Miranda and Lou situation is an interesting one. She's like so against his transformation, but it just kind of sounds like he chose a different lifestyle that made him happier.

Aside from the eating disorder and spitting out your steak, which is insanity. I have no shade and to each their own, I think it's such a something that's so ingrained in your culture from childhood.

So if they're happier in their misery, then so be it.

The fake Fendi bags in the valley is really funny because the valley is so like that. At least it was growing up and now it's like she.

Yeah. This was my next question to you because then Carrie is like, oh my God, I want one. So Samantha and her drive into the valley and it looks super grim.

Dogs are barking, they sound like Rottweilers and the dude is just having all these purses and shitty plastic bags being like three for 700 or something like that. What do you think of the valley and what do you think about fake copies of handbags?

At that time, the valley totally like that. It still is. The valley is like one area will be super nice houses and the next will be exactly like that.

So yeah, when she was like, I want to go back to the other area, I'm like, yeah, the fake Fendi's in the suitcase or in the back of the trunk of the car. I totally understand that it loses its appeal.

I feel that way about thrift shopping sometimes or even buffets of food. I'm like, if these pancakes were alone, I would want them. But seeing them in this buffet, now I don't, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think that's the same kind of effect with the bag.

Like Samantha at brunch being like, look at my bag, versus seeing a million of them in a trunk. Two different experiences, for sure. I also do think like...

Because like I had never thought about this of the buffet.

I know that I hate buffets. I'm going to say that it's because I don't like fake bags either now.

But I'm wondering maybe from your point of view where, you know, what you've created also has to do with like mindful spending or like not this completely foolish consumerism. What is the line?

Because sometimes I have been to the Grand Bazaar in Turkey and like you can allegedly get a bag of even better quality than a designer bag because the leather is good, but it's not the real thing.

How do you connect those dots from your own perspective?

I'm all about that. I would rather have something that's really well made and not something that everybody else has. Like I don't need to have the latest Fendi bag that's not my style.

I like having something that everybody else is wearing. But I think the New York girls are very different and it's very much status, especially in the fashion world. So I understand that.

I think if I was taking a fake bag back to New York, I'd be stressed about it.

Like someone would be able to see that it's fake or like look inside and not see the label or that seems like such an intense environment to be in all the time, where you're so judged on your clothes and you're this and you're that.

And if you're like Samantha Jones, I would be like, nobody can see Samantha Jones caught dead with a fake bag. That's my perspective. But personally, that's bad VR.

Being like my actual self, I would rather get something at like a cool handmade market or like a random designer that I found somewhere else. It's not, you know, the Fendi.

Yeah.

But that's just my taste.

I agree. I think I used to be obsessed with the designer bag when I was young. And obviously, I couldn't afford the real thing.

So I would get the fake one. But like, it is crazy the amount of crap that I can accumulate through the year, especially when it's like mindless spending. It's like, oh, whatever, you know, it's like 30 euros.

I can, whatever. Like then it's just like more and more trash that keeps accumulating. The next scene is Carrie and Keith having this date, I guess at what was supposed to be Keith's place and they're in the bathtub.

And then Carrie's voiceover keeps talking about her bikini wax making her do crazy stuff. So they make out, they sleep together until the next morning. They get rudely awakened by Carrie Fisher.

And Carrie finds out that not only he's not an agent, he's an assistant, the car's not his, the house not his, he was house sitting. I'm very curious. Is it that kind of like over?

It's not even overselling. It's like flat out lies in LA that people want to seem like all this to get a girl.

Yeah, that's a bit of a classic, I would say. That's extreme, like fully, you know, having slept with her and everything in somebody else's bed. That's an extreme situation.

But definitely the lines are blurred between the truth and reality quite often. It's a land of actors. Everybody's acting.

It's not lies, it's acting.

It's acting.

Has this ever happened to you or one of your girlfriends that they were like completely misled?

I'm grateful to say no, but again, I think that's because I'm like, we're dating people from school and stuff, not like random people at parties.

But I think just to have an interesting story, my friend did make out with Leonardo DiCaprio in an elevator on the way to Elefante in Santa Monica. That's a pretty good story. That always cries me out.

That is a pretty good story.

Because they didn't know each other at all, and they're standing in this elevator, somehow they end up making out, and then obviously stopped by the time the door is open, never spoke again.

I know I'm supposed to be offended, but kudos on her.

I know, right?

I don't know if that answered your question. It was just another fun story you can slice in there.

I think one's a friend of mine made out with whoever was playing Chuck Buzz. And she told the entire high school, because it was at the height of Gossip Girl.

And two months down the line, she was telling this story with another person that was there. And she was like, you do know that he just looked like him, but it wasn't really him, right?

And I think she obviously kept calling him Chuck, or I don't think she even tried to call him by the name of the actor.

I forget his name now.

And like, he never corrected her. But that was in one night stand.

All right, and then Samantha told the girls, like, Hugh invited us to a party at the Playboy Mansion. It's going to be amazing. Let's all go.

So the girls are going to the mansion for a party. And for starters, I love all their outfits. Then the whole vibe of the Playboy Mansion.

Again, I know I'm supposed to be offended, but I've seen it in so many shows that I'm like, okay, I need to ask you. Did you ever want to go? Was it around?

Because I think it was out for sale in 2016, but it was having still like a heyday up until probably 2012 or so. Do you know anybody that has been, would you ever be enticed to go to one of the parties?

This was a little bit before my time. So I was 16 in 2016 when it got sold.

So I feel like the Hugh Hefner days, I think back and I'm like, oh, like the, you know, the Playboy bunnies or whatever, but it wasn't super relevant or like in my version of pop culture.

I think the new age version of that is Dan Bilzerian, if you know who that is.

No, I like you.

He's like the new age Hugh Hefner, but like way grosser and there's none of the like class and sort of, you know, sophistication or semi-elegance that came with the Playboy thing. I did go to a Dan Bilzerian party in the Hills.

It was a Halloween party. My friend dragged me. It was crazy.

People love that story. A lot of guys, of course, idolize him and think that that's really cool. So I went to my generation's Hugh Hefner party.

But the actual one, I would have been way more inclined to go to a real Hugh Hefner party than a Dan Bilzerian one.

What was the vibe at this party? Did you feel that it was also very much like predatory men around women that were just seen as a piece of meat?

Yeah, pretty much. But it was like a circus, Universal Studios theme park of like costumes and all the women were wearing lingerie and crazy house, crazy cars, this, that. Like exactly out of the movies.

Oh my god.

To be a fly on that wall.

I know. I mean, I think a lot of the girls really are into it for whatever reason. So it wasn't too aggressive.

I don't know what happens behind closed doors, but it was still very much a party vibe.

Yeah. I mean, I guess if you are aware of the transaction that you're going into, all is bare. But in the party, Charlotte is a bit tipsy and she's having this conversation with his older man named Ian.

And they were talking about art and he's telling her like, that's when I started to collect Hockney.

And Charlotte was like, oh my god, the colors in the pool, our creations is just so LA and the guy is just like, oh my god, it's so nice to talk to an intelligent woman. I have been on the receiving end of that comment in LA. I'm assuming you too.

For sure.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so nice to talk to an intelligent woman or I always get, it's so nice to talk to a woman who is chill, isn't so, oh my god, you know, which I think for me, I'm half Australian and so I think that's where that comes into play.

Where I just, when you're also an LA local, you don't really get swept up in all the LA things. And I think that is appealing to guys, especially if they are from LA. But yeah, that Charlotte comment, and Miranda gets a comment like that too.

I think in the episode before, it's so nice to talk to an intelligent woman. Yeah. And then a lot of the women are just, and the chick in the back.

They're just, a lot of these women, I feel like are also acting dumb because I think it's what the men want. So, I don't know. I find that line annoying.

But the deadpan part of this conversation is when the guy is like, it's so nice to be talking to an intelligent woman.

Could I please buy you a pair of boobs? And then Charlotte is like, oh, stands up, leaves. And then she gets reminded how awful it is to be single out there.

I'm guessing you haven't been offered a pair of boobs. Nobody has offered me plastic surgery as of now.

No, I haven't. Yeah, I'm grateful to say no.

Okay.

And just to wrap it up, Samantha loses her Fendi fake bag. And then she sees that across the party, there's a Playboy bunny wearing the same bag. And she approaches her and she's like, you stole my purse and just yanks it off her.

And she's like, no, I didn't. This is my Fendi baguette bag. And she's like, no, if you open it, you'll see that it's filled with condoms and it says Made in China.

And Hugh arrives and they open the bag and it's like, no, you see, Made in Italy. So Samantha gets kicked out and by proxy, the rest of the party, they all go back to New York.

Samantha is happy to go back to the crimeless streets of New York, which, you know, not that crimeless, but anyway. Miranda is happy to leave Lou and people who don't swallow and spit out their steak behind.

Charlotte is happy to return to her marriage and Carrie is just happy to be back.

She can smoke in New York.

Yes. So I'm going to jump start to the advice to the girls, which is the last section of my episodes for Carrie. Imagine this was me.

I'm your friend. I'm coming to visit and I have this fling. I come the first night and I tell you, I met Matt Damon's agent.

He is taking me to the hot restaurant on Thursday and we're going house shopping on Friday. What would you tell me?

If he's cute, let's do a double date. That's what I would tell you. Give me the teeth.

That's great. Definitely go. You only live once.

Have the experience. You don't need to marry him.

I love that advice. That is some of the most solid advice we've gotten on the show.

Okay.

For Miranda.

Because I think at one point she's telling the girls, like, I think Lou might be the best man out there because he has kind of like the grid and the intellect of New York, but he's kind of like embraced his happiness, met the Dalai Lama and lost

weight. And then once she finds out that what he has is an eating disorder, she goes back to being angry again and she embraces her full New York personality. Do you think that maybe she could have brought a bit more of LA with her back to New York?

How do you maybe bring? Yeah.

I'm all for the cultural blend. He's got to get his eating disorder in check, but I think it's great to like take the best parts of both places.

I mean, Miranda is so cynical and judgmental and that's kind of the feedback she gets from her friends a lot as well.

Yeah.

Shake a little of that off. Like go for a hike, go for a walk.

Yes.

Have some, get some sun.

Fly over to LA more often.

Exactly. Like why not? I mean, don't change your whole personality, but take the bits and pieces.

Okay.

And then for Samantha, what do you think about maybe her buying the fake bag and then assuming when she saw the bunny with the bag with obviously fake tits, she thought like everything in her was fake and she stole her purse.

What would you challenge in her prejudice around this whole thing of her accusing the bunny out of left field?

Yeah, I would say that if she's standing there with Hugh Hefner at that party doing all those things, like why would she have a fake bag and you have a real bag or why would she steal your bag? Also, you're standing there with a fake bag.

So like check yourself, you shouldn't have a fake bag in the first place if you're going to judge other people for having one so harshly, you know? I think that she really embarrasses herself there. It was a good lesson for her.

Yes, I do think and hopefully she learned it.

Okay, and finally for Charlotte, do you honestly think if I'm Charlotte and I'm in a shitty marriage, but because I go out there and somebody flirts with me and treats me like that man offering me a boob job, I think that that gives my marriage an

extra air or whatever you want to call it. Do you think that that's legit or do you think that that is kind of like very shaky grounds?

No, I get that. I think it's like, okay, a little bit of motivation to go back and keep trying, which is great. And she clearly needed it after the world's worst honeymoon.

But go back, give it another go and then get out quickly. But I do see how that inspired her to give it another chance and to have some renewed strength to keep fighting.

Fair enough. I do think it gives you perspective. But like sometimes I'm just like, just because the grass is mud on the other side doesn't mean that you got to make like a castle out of the big pile of shit that you got in your garden.

It's true.

But she is married and Trey is a great guy. Sort of. I never liked Trey that much, honestly.

He's like kind of no personality and just...

Yeah.

Like, I don't know. But I think she owes it to her marriage to try, but I think not too long. Like if you've never had sex successfully, get out before you got.

Okay.

And then last piece of advice. What advice would you give somebody that's looking to go to LA and have the Carrie experience before Carrie Fisher?

That's a good question. Honestly, if you want the Carrie experience of some guy, like whining and dining you and showing you LA and, oh, there's an after party, get on Raya.

Raya is where you will meet guys who want to be your hero and like show you the world and probably have some sort of access. As long as you're dressed well and have some, I mean, Instagram followers helps a lot.

You can really get in anywhere as a girl. It's not that hard, so.

There. You find a guy who wants to show you around. I mean, I'm with Johnny Surrond though.

I feel like Raya is filled with founders and CEOs.

Yeah, but that's kind of the new LA. Like the Hollywood industry is in such a different place than it was when this was being filmed. And it is so much more now like founders and tech, and it's still producers and directors and this and that.

It looks very different than like there's 50 big studio heads and no, no, no, it's like everybody has some streaming service of doing something. There's a lot of gray area in those types of people now.

Kids, when I go over there and I open my Raya, if I see founder or a picture in a private jet, I'm like, Oh yeah, no.

No, but if you're wanting that Vince Vaughn experience, nobody said it was going to be wholesome.

True, true, true, true, true.

Yeah, if you want to find an actual good guy in LA, I have no advice.

Move.

Yeah. I mean, I met Haku in LA, but like we got introduced through mutual friends, you know? So have good friends, I guess.

All right.

Well, Aisha, that was the episode. Thank you so much. I would love for you to tell our listeners maybe a bit more about where to find you and your business.

Okay, sure.

Yes. I run Mane Design, which is a social media marketing agency, as well as Pontoon, which is a media platform for women who live a global lifestyle and travel a lot.

So you can find me on Instagram at Aisha underscore Manearing or Pontoon or Mane Design on Instagram.

Amazing. I'll plug it. Yeah.

I'll plug it all in the show notes. But thank you so much, Aisha. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Thank you as well.

So much fun. Bye.

Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of And Just Like That We Found Therapy. If you loved it, follow the podcast, leave a five-star review, and send this episode to somebody who needs it. It really helps the show.

And don't forget about our new segment this season, He's Not Your Mr. Big. If you have a love dilemma you want answered by one of our in-house experts, you can now submit directly through the form on my website.

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I love y'all.

Bye.

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