Here’s the rewritten version in natural, fluent English:

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It’s Episode 1 of And Just Like That… Season 3, and Miranda finds herself in a setting many queer people know well: the club. “Thanks, guys,” she tells Carrie and Charlotte, who suddenly look like the straightest people on earth. “I couldn’t handle another night at these lesbian bars alone with no one talking to me…”

“Did you try talking to anyone?” Charlotte asks, wide-eyed and completely unaware of how cliquey some queer spaces can be.

“Mostly I just stood there, smiled, and racked up a $37 mocktail bill,” Miranda replies.

Even though Miranda’s fictional—in real life, Cynthia Nixon has been happily married for years, and if she showed up at a club, the gays would lose their minds—my heart sank. This is awful, I thought, watching through my fingers as Carrie and Charlotte inexplicably leave after someone barely acknowledges Miranda (didn’t she just say she didn’t want to be alone?). Terrible wingman behavior, I worried—until I realized it wasn’t that simple. The truth is, Miranda—still new to being a lesbian, still awkward with a strap-on (as we saw last season)—desperately needs queer friends.

I adore my straight friends—all two of them—but having a solid queer community is essential, especially when you’re dating or just figuring things out. You can swap dating stories with people who truly get it (straight folks might find it odd if someone’s best friends with their ex, for example, while queer people understand how complicated that can be). They’ll actually want to go to the club with you. They’ll feel at home there, which helps you feel comfortable too. They’ll also have your back: if Miranda had gone to that bar with a lesbian friend, they’d never have let her sleep with that nun (played perfectly by Rosie O’Donnell), who she clearly wasn’t that into.

I’m lucky to have lesbian friends. They’ll happily see Love Lies Bleeding twice, they can dissect The Real L Word (that niche 2010s reality show) in ridiculous detail, and we’ll probably agree on the whole JoJo Siwa and Chris Hughes drama. There’s a comfort and ease that comes with shared experiences—something even your oldest straight friends can’t always replicate. When it comes to dating, it helps to know people who know the person you’re seeing (for intel, obviously). It’s complicated, but if you’ve seen The L Word‘s “chart,” you get it.

As a sober, late-blooming lesbian, Miranda isn’t exactly in the easiest position to make queer friends (it’s hard enough for the rest of us—you can’t just ask strangers about their sexuality and invite them to hang out). Che Diaz—who I miss this season, purely for the laughs—never really brought her into the fold, which is how many people find their queer community: through partners. And most queer women Miranda’s age are probably married or busy raising dogs.

But come on—after everything with Che, and while she’s still figuring herself out, can someone (the writers) please give her a break? Can Miranda just get some queer friends already? I can’t take it!