GIRLS: How to Find Your Own Sugar Daddy (Like I Did)

Come in here girls, lemme show you’all How to Find Your Own Sugar Daddy like I did.

It all started two years ago when my bulldog, Hemingway, got sick. After the $500 I’d dropped at the vet, I couldn’t even afford a cab home. And all the freelance work I could find wouldn’t come close to footing the impending bills. Huddled at the bus stop, Hemingway drooling on my knee, I Googled: “How to find a sugar daddy.”

But I’d always been curious. I imagined my life with a sugar daddy to look like a mash-up between an old black-and-white movie and a rap video — with ample time left over to write the Next Great American Something. There would be shopping in Milan, swimming in the Maldives, and gambling in Monaco. In other words, a fantasy complete with five-star pet care.

I created accounts on several websites. Every week or two, I would meet another potential sugar daddy. Six months and as many unpaid vet bills later, I found a nerdy-cute i-banker in his late thirties; Eli immediately took care of my debt and transferred Hemingway to the city’s best vet. Still, I took it slow. On our fifth date, he offered me $2,500 a month so I could relax with my dog. That night, Eli got lucky, too.

Two months later, I had to put Hemingway down. In my depression, I buried myself in Eli’s bed, welcoming the high-thread-count comfort of his luxury loft. He soon convinced me to move in. This was how I inadvertently let him into the “boyfriend zone.” In turn, I got to shop more, join his fancy gym, and eat at fabulous restaurants nightly. Tropical vacations and designer lingerie are decadent, but the habitual treats — like organic groceries, a cleaning lady, and pedicures — are what had me hooked.

Eyebrows may raise, but I see no moral issue here. In fact, if there’s anything unbalanced about this equation, it’s in his favor. I give Eli what money is worthless without: friendship and fun. Plus great s.e.x. That, by the way, is the easy part. It’s the emotional labor that’s challenging: I do all the grown-up relationship work, from planning our dates to downright mothering. If I don’t properly tend his every need, a tantrum erupts: “You ate all the Häagen-Dazs? You’re just using me! It’s over!” Ultimately, being paid to put up with these pathological antics is toxic.

I know I have to quit — but I dread the thought of reverting back to a bodega-based diet or, God forbid, drugstore makeup. Despite these fallbacks, many of my girlfriends — from the bossy professional to those of DIY anarchist persuasion — still ask for pointers on acquiring their own sugar daddy. Here’s what I tell them.