The Sugar Baby Who Challenged My Views on Social Status and Class

When I met my sugar baby, I’ll admit that I was living by the “tech bro code.” There’s no rulebook for living like a tech bro, but one of the core concepts is: optimization. And I was doing everything I could to optimize my life. I wore the same clothes every day so that I didn’t waste time picking out what I would wear. I ate the same meal of grilled chicken, brown rice, and broccoli every day, optimized for nutrition and cooking time. I was strictly regimented with my exercise, sleep, alcohol intake, and meditation. If there was a YouTube video on how a certain behavior could translate to personal success, it was a part of my life.

All the while, I was developing a pretty unattractive trait: superiority. I felt the only thing that differentiated me from everyone else was discipline. If someone was more overweight than I, well, it was because they didn’t train as hard as me. If someone made less money than me, well, it was because they didn’t know how to focus their mind. If someone got sick at the office, I had little empathy. They should have been taking care of their body and minds just like I was.

You can see that I’m talking about it with a bit of judgment in my voice because, obviously, I can see how much of an insufferable guy I was being. And, this story is about the exact moment that I realized it.

It all started with Dini, a sugar baby that I had met to attend important work events with me (see, I was even optimizing my social life.) Dini was a nice enough girl, but at that point in my life, I saw relationships as barriers to my personal and professional growth. So, I had built up a wall in order not to let her in emotionally.

Dini, though, had other plans. Not ulterior motives; nothing like that. It’s just that she was a sweet, sensitive person, and she’s always been connected to her emotions. So, when things seemed to be going well between us, she invited me over to her house for a home-cooked meal to thank me for the past few months together.

I wasn’t overly excited about the food or, to be perfectly honest, seeing her neighborhood. But I said yes, because she seemed excited about it.

Anyway, I got to her house, a modest but clean one-bedroom apartment in a not-so-great part of town. And I could smell her cooking from the street. Lots of herbs and spices, and butter. My stomach turned at the thought of straying from my diet, but my mouth was watering at the smell.

We sat down at the table and she served me a portion of homemade chicken pot pie. It was absolutely delicious, but I had to stop myself from eating the whole slice that she served me. She asked me why I wasn’t eating more, and I told her, admittedly not in the kindest of ways, that eating this many calories in one sitting would throw me off for the next week.

I could tell that she was offended, and the mood changed immediately.

“Listen,” I told her, “It’s not a big deal. Next time, you can just make me a salad with chicken, and I’ll be happy with that.”

This is the comment that really ruined the night, and Dini lost it immediately.

“Do you know how hard it is to find fresh vegetables in this neighborhood? I would have to walk 2 miles to reach a grocery store that has lettuce. And that’s not even the point. My grandmother taught me this recipe; it was what she always used to make us for special occasions because it’s a pain in the ass to make, and not exactly cheap.”

“If money is the issue, I could have just bought us food.”

Dini took a sharp breath. “You know what, money is actually the issue. Because for you, food is just something you can buy anytime you like. Sushi, steak, whatever you want, anytime you want it. For me, food has actual value. Because it’s sometimes a struggle to have food in the fridge. And growing up, I didn’t have the best clothes or a cellphone, but I knew that when I came home, my family would have done everything they could to have a hot meal waiting for me. So, if I make you something, that’s me showing you that I want you at my table.”

I instantly felt terrible, but there wasn’t much more that I could say at the moment. Dini had made it clear that, at least for tonight, I was no longer welcome at her table. So, I left her enough money to cover the cost of the groceries she had bought for the chicken pot pie, and I took my leave.

At home, as I heated up my premade meal in the oven, I thought about what Dini had said about learning how to cook from her grandmother. And I realized that everything I ever cooked was because I had seen it on an Instagram video. I didn’t grow up with grandmother-made meals. My parents never cooked. They both worked, and they had the money to pay for us to eat out every night. At most, my mother would make scrambled eggs. So, it made sense that I never thought of food as something emotional. Food didn’t connect me to anything.

It also bothered me to hear that Dini lived in an area so devoid of healthy food, while here I was planning out the nutritional content of everything I put in my body daily. I knew she was still mad at me, but I tried calling her anyway. I told myself that I wouldn’t call more than once if she chose not to pick up. But, she did.

“I was an idiot,” I said immediately. There was silence on the other end of the line. I explained what I had come to realize about never having felt connected to food.

“I guess it’s like a social status thing to not care about food,” I continued. “Every guy I work with is so obsessed with being able to outsource their meals and maximize their workouts and focus all their mental energy on work. And I’ve been caught up in that, too. I’m realizing that it’s incredibly boring and I’d like to change some things.”

Dini listened to me quietly and then made an offer.

“I can forgive you,” she said, “if you start cooking for me. Actual, good food, nothing ‘nutritionally dense.’ I want comfort food. I want it to be from scratch. We can start from there.”

Maybe it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. But learning how Dini and I had such different concepts of food based on our upbringing was something pretty ground-breaking for me. Because it taught me that my privilege could also be something that was holding me back. It was keeping me from being able to connect on an emotional level with people I cared about.

Now, part of our agreement is that I take Dini grocery shopping once a week. We load up my car at the nice grocery store in my part of town, and then we go to her place and she cooks me a homemade meal, or I cook her one. I make sure I eat everything on the plate, every time.