In real life and at his level of wealth/good looks, I can’t even imagine Mr. Big really dating the woman Carrie started the show as

Indeed, mr.Big is kind of like that nice guy gets hot girl trope backwards. He even gets into a relationship with a model who he later leaves for Carrie, the reversal of the trope of the hot girl dating the perfect guy but then realizing the nice imperfect guy was her real soulmate. Except that unlike with the nice guy trope, in the real world, society doesn't expect men like mr.Big to date the nice girls instead of the models.

It would mean the world if people acknowledged me as an individual, even if it was simply because I was nice to them.

Women are expected to be nice. It's not like with men where the tiniest bit of politeness is taken as a sign of them being a wonderful human being, your nice behaviour doesn't register to others as a trait of you as an individual but rather something that's expected because as an unattractive woman you're the lowest on the hierarchy.

Getting to the other side and getting a chance to think hardships “build character”/have purpose is too.

Unfortunately, for a woman, this is dependent on how she looks. Though many would say they have a strong character because of whatever struggles they've had, that character would crumble into dust if they lost their looks because that's what determines how women are treated. In reality, character and purpose are what men get to have no matter what and women get to have as a reward for being attractive to men.