A Real Story

My transmission died the same week my hours got cut at the vet clinic, so I did the math and made a profile on one of those sugar baby apps that keeps popping up in podcast ads. I wrote a bio that made me sound like a normal 26-year-old who likes hiking and bad reality TV, because I am one, and I set my “expectations” field to something vague like “open to discussing.” Within two days I had 40-something messages, and maybe four were from men who didn’t open with a photo of their Rolex.

The one I actually met, a real estate guy in his fifties, took me to a wine bar downtown and spent the first twenty minutes talking about his divorce instead of, you know, the arrangement. I liked that, honestly — it felt human. But when I finally asked what a monthly allowance usually looks like, I froze up and said “whatever feels fair to you,” which is exactly the wrong answer. He named a number that was less than my rent. I said okay anyway because I didn’t want to seem greedy, which in hindsight is a very expensive kind of politeness.

We kept seeing each other for about four months, dinners twice a month and a Venmo that showed up like clockwork, until it just quietly stopped, no real conversation, no ending. What actually messed with me wasn’t the money or even the fizzle — it was realizing I’d let someone else set the terms of my own worth because I was too embarrassed to say a dollar amount out loud on a first date.

If I ever do this again, and I might, the number gets said in the first message, not over wine. I learned that the awkwardness of stating a price upfront is nothing compared to the awkwardness of resenting someone for months because you didn’t.