How My Sugar Daddy Supported My Education Without Strings Attached

I come from a really traditional, religious family who live in a small town where they haven’t been exposed to many other perspectives or types of people. And, I knew early on that I would have to play along with that lifestyle so long as I was living there because I had seen the alternative.

There were kids I went to high school with who messed up (got caught drinking or in a relationship) and were basically thrown out by their parents. Those kids ended up moving in with friends and working dead-end jobs, which meant that they would never be able to save up enough to move away.

I, on the other hand, wanted to get out. I studied hard enough to get grants for college, and I taught myself how to take out student loans to pay for the rest. My parents offered to pay as much as they could, but the truth is, I didn’t want to be beholden to them. I knew that if they decided that they didn’t like what I was majoring in or how I was spending my free time, they would threaten to pull my funding. I didn’t want to give them that chance.

But one thing that I learned my very first semester of college is that it’s still expensive as heck to live on your own, even with a living stipend. I had no money to pay for food outside of the dining hall, and my clothes were getting worn through. I tried to get jobs on campus, but I couldn’t find anything to fit my schedule.

I started meeting up with a feminist group on campus simply because they had free pizza at their meetings or coffee and bagels at their volunteering events. I didn’t even consider myself to be much of a feminist, although these friendships quickly became some of the most important in my life.

It was around this time that I started to sugar, very sporadically at first. I would schedule one or two dates with new partners around the time when my meal plan was starting to run out. It was usually a good time, a chance to forget about deadlines and the sad state of my savings account.

My close friends from the feminist group knew about my dates, and they didn’t necessarily approve, but they supported me and made sure that I was safe. On the flip side, I never felt fully comfortable telling my sugar daddies about the fact that I was a part of a feminist group on campus. I made that mistake once, and the guy basically chewed my ear off for the next hour, saying that I was what was wrong with this generation and that he never would have accepted a date with me if he had known that I had a hidden agenda. I mean, the guy accused me of having a hidden wire and recording him for social media.

After that, I learned my lesson. Just like in my hometown, I would have to play by the rules in the sugaring world.

Ultimately, that was the wrong take. And it almost cost me my relationship with Chance.

Chance was a sugar daddy I met by accident because he didn’t realize that he had selected “no strings attached” on his dating profile.

Turns out, he was looking for something serious and long-term. So, when he started talking about what a relationship between the two of us would look like, I was confused.

“Sorry, I guess I should have been clearer when we were setting up this date,” I told him. “I don’t do repeat dates. Maybe we could have something again in a couple of months, but I’m not looking for something regular.”

Chance was noticeably disappointed by this and told me that he had been really enjoying our chemistry.

“Is there any way that I would be able to convince you of a weekly get-together? It doesn’t have to be something super serious, but I like consistency, and it seems like we get along well.”

I told him I would think about it, but the truth is, I was very hesitant. I didn’t like the idea of a sugar daddy getting to know me. I didn’t want to answer questions about my studies or how I spent my free time. I felt like he was no different than my judgmental family, and at the first sign that we were misaligned in our beliefs, he would kick me to the curb.

The next morning, I saw that Chance had sent me money so that I could buy the specific breakfast sandwich that I had raved about during our conversation the night before. It was a sweet gesture, but I was worried that he was trying to court me for a relationship, so I sent him a more silly than sultry selfie with the sandwich and didn’t keep the conversation going.

Now, I’ll say that Chance never got into weird, stalkery, intense territory, but he was going to make it known that he was interested in me. For the next few weeks, he sent me little monetary gifts every couple of days to cover things like coffee and ice cream. He sent really sweet messages like, “No need to respond if you’re busy. Just wanted to let you know I’m thinking about you and show you this cute picture of my dog.”

I was getting good vibes from Chance, and despite my logical brain telling me to block him before things went on for too long, I asked him if he would want to get lunch near campus instead. I told myself it would be an in-person break-up, and I scheduled it before I had a meeting with the feminists afterwards, so I had a hard out.

But again, despite what was going on in my logical brain, my feelings were threatening to mutiny. I actually really liked Chance. In other circumstances, I would see him as dating material. But because he made more money than me and was older, I just couldn’t get the feeling out of my head that he was just like every other “adult” I had known back home.

It was time for me to leave so that I could go to the meeting, and Chance seemed surprised that I was running off so suddenly.

“Sorry,” I told him. “Time just got away from me.  I have to go.” That part was true. I thought I would have broken up with him within twenty minutes. But an hour had passed without me noticing. When he asked where I was headed off to, I got cagey and lied about having to go to office hours. He clearly saw through my lie but didn’t say anything.

Things between us keep going like that for the next three weeks. I was standoffish and cold. He was consistently kind and generous without being overbearing. And despite wanting to keep my distance, I also wanted to keep seeing him, so I would ask him to meet up on short notice every couple of days.

But finally, he reached his breaking point when, once again, I said that I would meet up with him at the last minute, only to end the date early with a made-up excuse.

“Look,” he told me. “I know that you didn’t want a regular relationship because you want your privacy, or whatever. But you’re treating me like I’ve done something wrong to you, like you can’t trust me. That’s a terrible feeling that I don’t deserve. I don’t need to know every detail of your life. But I need some more consistency and, I don’t know, humanness from you. I’m not going to try to change anything about you. I just want to know you a little bit. And if you can’t do that, then yeah, I think we should end things, and you can find someone who is better at being completely no strings attached.”

I knew that Chance was going to get to this point. I absolutely would have felt the same way, and it made me feel like an awful person.

I thought about whether it would actually be better for Chance if I took the out. But I could see that this was my hang-up, and if I could get over it, maybe we could be happy together.

“I’m part of a feminist collective,” I blurted out. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you, because guys get weird about that sometimes. And I thought you’d either want to talk me out of it or just ghost me.” “What would give you the idea that I would be so opposed to you being in a feminist group?”

“Because I’m guessing that’s not really your political leaning.”

“Well, no. But that doesn’t mean that I would want you to quit your group. Did I give you the impression that I would try to control you like that?”

“No, never. It’s just that, in my past—”

That’s when Chance stopped me. He told me, “Listen, that’s where the problem is between us. You’re treating me like people in your past. I’m not those people. I’m not going to judge you or try to make you do anything you don’t want to do. I am just curious about your life. You don’t have to tell me everything, but do you think we can just start with the basics and go from there?”

For the next four years, Chance was the absolute perfect sugar daddy. We set up weekly or biweekly dates. We got to know some of the basics about each other’s lives, but nothing too intimate. He paid for my coffee a few times a week, and his allowance made life so much easier for me. I ended up graduating on time and getting my dream job within a few months of graduating. I would be moving, so there did really come a time for me to break up with Chance, but we ended on good terms, and I thanked him for staying patient while I worked on my trust issues.