Aw, Honey Honey

Sunday night, before I went out with Will, I had been fooling around on OkCupid for laughs. Most of the messages I received, from whimpering 20-somethings with no jobs and bad hair, were pathetic attempts at finding casual sex. Just before Will arrived, though, I did scan a polite message from an older man looking to be someone’s — to put it crudely — sugar daddy. Had I seen this message even two weeks earlier, I would have never considered it. It’s amazing what a person will do to survive when she is completely broke with no hope for a stable, sufficient income in sight. I did reply, and agreed to meet him in a hotel restaurant.

Sugaring is dangerous for obvious reasons. I was going to a top secret meeting with a person who, for all I knew, would turn out to be someone who collects human, female hides and would force hydration upon me. So, I texted a good friend — the only friend to whom I could ever reveal this sort of information — to be concerned if I didn’t give him an update by evening. Coincidentally, the friend I texted was my first Older Man, but more of a mentor and certainly not a sugar daddy. If he had been such a thing, I hardly think we could have considered it sugaring. He says I would have been his mistress, a sort of extended affair between compatible souls. We are very much alike, and because of that, I do wish that it were him instead. An SD should be someone with whom a sugar baby can get along, someone conversationally interesting and at least reasonably attractive to her. Sadly, my new SD is not very clever, not very literary, and not particularly handsome physically or in the way he carries himself. But, he is kind and generous, and I am not really in the position to be ultra selective. SDs in my area are hard to come by, period.

There is something liberating about being an SB. I don’t have to be myself. I can escape. My job is to be a fantasy for someone, a beautiful woman to hang on the arm of a man with a lot of money. In some ways, it’s a fantasy for me, too. It’s a way to get away without having to abandon personal and occupational commitments. God knows what my therapist will say about this.

So many people imagine that sugar babies are bimbos with no ambition or marketable talents. Perhaps that’s true of some. But to be successful and safe, it takes patience, intelligence, self-reliance and sometimes great acting skills. I don’t hope to make a career out of this. I am a great hairdresser in the making, but I need assistance, and I am willing to partake in something honest and mutually beneficial in order to get it.

I am supposed to have another date this Friday to further discuss allowance and solidify our agreements. I hope it will come through. And I hope we will be eating sushi.