Being My Own Sugar Daddy

My mother, like many mothers past, present, and future, is always there with sage bits of wisdom that I should probably listen to and usually do…well, most of the time. Get a haircut, wear something nicer, add a little salt to that ’cause it’s bland, you’re wearing those sneakers? and a variety of other motherly advice.

Some mothers and their children have a really close relationship where they can have frank discussions about dating, their love life and sex. I usually don’t get that frank about any of those topics with my mother. We may occasionally talk about the person I am dating (I have a boyfriend now and my mother has obviously met him), or if I had been on any dates and how they went, but not much in the intimate detail department. I’m just not into sharing those details with her, you know?

When I was single, my mother offered up this one tip, half-jokingly, that I probably should have just shrugged off. “Why don’t you get a Sugar Daddy?” she said to me one day. I laughed and gave her one of those ‘Mom – you so crazy’ looks. Then later that night, I tweeted something about how I was looking for a Sugar Daddy. Thanks to the power of Twitter, I received a couple responses from very helpful people telling me where I could find myself a real live Sugar Daddy.

There were two very specific websites that came up often, so I checked them out and quickly signed up for accounts. I used all my own information, because if I actually ended up meeting with someone, I wanted to be the Real Steven, you know?

I honestly didn’t expect anyone to email me since I was not in the age demographic I assume most Sugar Daddies are looking for – which I am guessing is anywhere between 18 – 24 years old. I loved browsing the sites and wondered who else was seriously going to these sites. I imagined stories that brought people there and wondered how many of them signed up thanks to a suggestion from their mother.

One of my favorite things about one of the sites was their Facebook-like ‘ads’ that would pop up every so often. They would depict something that Sugar Daddies were looking for in a potential Sugar Baby (I had willingly labeled myself a Sugar Baby). In one of these ‘ads’, Hilary Duff was depicted in what I assume is a paparazzi shot of her smiling at a limo driver in an airport, but this website had smartly crafted and elaborate tale.

To avoid any possible lawsuits, I assume, they also added a nice little parenthetical “(Hilary Duff is not a member of ________)”. I recognized the brilliance of this particular ‘ad’, made a screenshot and saved in in my files for safe keeping.

I eventually did get a few emails, but they went nowhere and I soon pretended like the entire experience never happened. A few weeks after our original conversation, my mother and I were in the car – just chatting about stuff when the topic of Sugar Daddies came up again.

Mom: You’re still looking for a sugar daddy, right?
Me: Mom! (said with as much exaggeration as you can imagine)
Mom: What? Just some nice guy with a lot of money that will take care of us.
Me: Wait. Us?
Mom: Well, I don’t want much… just invite me to your summer home or on vacations or out to dinner.

I marked the emails coming from both of those Sugar Daddy sites as spam right after that conversation and didn’t look back. I never felt comfortable with the concept of “What I Expect” – meaning how much money I would expect from these guys.

Recently, I was talking to my boyfriend about writing this, and he asked me why I would need a sugar daddy since I’m already en route to becoming one myself.  I laughed, or, well, “haha”-ed since it was via GChat.  I suppose it never occurred to me to actively pursue a real-life sugar daddy, because I had always thought of myself as my own personal sugar daddy.  Why borrow the sugar when you got your own, right?