Ah, there was a thesis when I was writing this all in my head, but I fear it may have flown the proverbial coop. I shall, however, soldier on bravely. Because god knows, you people deserve only the best.
So Mr Indemnity sent me this link to a NYT article suggesting I might find it interesting and perhaps blogable. It was about seekingarrangement.com, a dating website which matches up "sugar daddies" with "sugar babies". Now, I'm not exactly sure what Mr Indemnity thought I might find blogable (i.e. rage-inducing) about this. I mean, yes, I do find men in their 40s and 50s seeking out women my son's age mildly skeevy and I do maintain they ought to be satisfied with the attentions and sexual favors of sexilicious women my age, but c'mon, campers, we all know that's mainly a defense mechanism born out of my own sadness that I am no longer a young and pretty thing, and that if you take out the immaturity and penchant for draaahhhhmmmaaa and non-self-aware craziness endemic to young women my son's age (none of which you'd have to put up with for a second were you paying for the transaction), then *of course* a guy in his 40s or 50s would rather have the attentions and sexual favors of a nubile college girl, not the saggy, wrinkled, flabby ones of, say, me. (As an aside: run-on sentence much, Andrea?) Or perhaps, Mr Indemnity thought I would be outraged by the covert almost-prostitution involved in this website, though I think he's probably aware I ain't got no problem with *actual* prostitution, as long as everyone's of legal age and not being forced or coerced, and as long as the prostitutes don't offer "massage" since that just pisses off and inconveniences those of us who actually do massage, no quotation marks.
Anyway, I've got nothing to say about any of that, beyond that which I've, y'know, said. I would, however, like to expound on what I actually took away from the (very interesting!) article, and that is: what everyone in this world *really* wants is for someone else to make them feel special. While there are women on that site purely looking for someone to help pay their tuition or their credit card debts, there are apparently a goodly number who don't actually need cash, but instead, want someone who will buy them expensive, lovely gifts or take them to lovely places where they feel princess-like and spoiled because that makes them feel special. And for many of the men, it's not just sex with some hot little thing or the status that they feel when they take the hot little thing out in public, it's that they develop a mentor-like relationship with these women, that the women put them on a pedestal and treat them like they're important, and that makes them feel special.
Is there anyone who is immune from this, really? People who didn't get enough love, attention, or approval from their parents or caregivers when they were very young spend their whole lives chasing after it, and people like me (cf. stories of my beloved grandmother) spend their whole lives (futilely?) trying to recreate it. And when you get even a taste of it, it can be like a drug in its seductiveness. I spent a good nine or ten years of my life with/not with, in love with, pining for, a man almost solely because just about every minute we were together, he made me feel like the most fascinating, desirable, perfect woman ever. He made me feel like even my many and copious flaws were charming. He made me feel special. (And I daresay he felt the same back from me, because I worshipped him.)
While I regret nothing about that relationship now that it's long over and I am finally completely over him (except perhaps for the fact it dragged on so long when I should have cut the cord), and while I have many immensely happy memories of time we spent together, and while I recognize that it was good for me in many ways (showing me, for example, that you can love someone passionately and yet not spend all the friggin' time fighting, go figure), I also realize it fucked me up in many ways, too. That he would, ultimately, choose another woman over me when he made me feel that special? As long time readers will know, that left me feeling like, no matter how "perfect" I am, I am still not good enough for someone to actually want me, all of me. It has also made me put my defenses up a lot more against that feeling of being made to feel special, which I guess is mildly sad. If I'm honest, I'm more suspicious of it these days. When my charms are enumerated, or I feel a vibe of "god, you're fabulous", it's not as if I jump immediately to the conclusion that I am being lied to, or played, (because that's not at all what I feel my above-referenced ex did to me), but that I feel like, "well, yeah, you feel that *now* in the moment, but in the cold light of day, you're gonna feel like I'm not all that" (which is much closer). Oh, not to mention what my feelings are about having another woman ultimately chosen over me who, from what very little I know, has historically made the chooser miserable...but I think I wrote a little essay on here before about how you people with Y chromosomes are all closet masochists, so we'll just leave that. Ha!
See? I lost the thesis. But, yeah. Everyone wants to feel special, and if being someone's sugar daddy or sugar baby does it for ya, god bless. That's all I have to say about that. And don't eat too many jelly beans.
xoxo
6 comments:
To tell you the truth, I was curious to see where you might go with it. I was betting that you'd be amused (not outraged) by the "covert almost-prostitution"--and the fact that so many obviously capable college women/graduate students (rather than skeevy strippers) apparently don't have a major issue with that aspect of it.
I'd also thought you might pick up on the Temple University historian, that Heterosexual relationships, including marriage, have long involved economic transactions, but Bailey points out that when men provided financial security, they traditionally did so in exchange for a woman’s sexual virtue (and potential to bear and rear children), not for sexual thrills.
And that In the early 1900s, courtship shifted from girls’ porches or parlors to a commercial venture: a date. Etiquette manuals of the time were explicit — boys were to pay for meals, entertainment and transportation, and in return, girls were to provide well-groomed company, rapt attention and at least a certain amount of physical affection. His money bought not only companionship but also her indebtedness.
“It made a lot of people uneasy, because if men’s money was central to the dating relationship, what distinguished it from prostitution?” Bailey says. Seen in this context, Bailey argues, Seeking Arrangement “is a piece of contemporary society. It’s simply more explicit and transparent about the bargains struck in the traditional model of dating.”
But you didn't go there at all. Where you did go was someplace not explicitly mentioned in the article which I thought was actually more interesting and universal (as well as more personal). Way to go.
Well, we *do* know that when I read/hear/see something, my thoughts don't necessarily go in the direction that most people's might, right? Because my brain is not like other people's. And I'm okay with that. :-)
I'm kinda deeply dubious that in our grandparents' or great-grandparents' day, etiquette manuals insisted that if you buy a girl an ice cream soda (or whatever one did on a date in 1921), she is then obligated to kiss you or some such. I want proof! Start googling!
Screw "feeling special"--give me "treated well" every time. (Took me decades to figure that one out).
Eh. I think it's hard to separate out for most of us: being treated well makes us feel special. Or maybe I'm just projecting! :-)
Sure, it's similar, but the distinction for me is in the exclusivity part. People who treat ALL people well are far more attractive to me these days that people who are (or might be) jerks, but fake it for one "special" someone for awhile.
Oh! I take your point. That's the teenage girl thing there, where the "bad boy" is so much more attractive because if he's a dick in general but nice *to you*, then you're reeeaaalllyyy special. Hopefully we all grow out of that!
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