Lady Danger

I was at Town & Country last week week, stocking up on the BD's favourite hair conditioner, so of course I had to stop into TJ Maxx. I flipped through a few MAC lipsticks and decided to choose based on the names. 'Lady Danger' obviously catches my eye because it was a such a fun movie and well, I'm the opposite of dangerous, mostly. Not sure how to flip that coin, but we play with the odds and ends we're given, nu?

I stopped for a coffee at Dorothy Lane Market, and check platforms. I'm giving them more attention at the moment because I am slowly inching my way back towards the concept of a formal workplace. But the message in this instance - on LinkedIn, mind you! - is basically a catfish. 'Would you be my sugar baby?' Apparently, a weekly stipend of $5k. It's one thing to get this kind of BS on Instagram or Twitter but when did LinkedIn become a meat market or elaborate catfishing site? 

My response could go one of 2 ways: report it to LinkedIn or reply with benign-ish sarcasm. 'Does that come with a pension and benefits package? Could you send over an contract and NDA for my solicitor to look over?'

I opt for the former. I'm so tired of being scammed and played, even remotely. Especially remotely.  It is actually more of a mind f@ck, the remote thing, which is doubly challenging when you have tendencied to long-distance/longer-term relationships. 

Don't get me wrong, I am charming and 73.8% good person with a fluctuation of sweevil thrown in for good measures. But honestly, is the world of cat-fishing so lucrative that THIS is what we are asked to contend with? I mean, online/app dating is exhausting at the best of times, but really...who has this kind of time. 

I expect a certain level of 'ick' on other platforms. I'd love to claim that this happens more since I unlocked my Instagram profile but honestly it happens the same amount. Fake profiles, fake chat...it could easily become demoralising.  But I have to wonder...I mean...is it luctative? Satisfying? What exactly is the end game?

 I am pretty quick to shut these down these days. When I first got back into online dating, I genuinely thought you had to reply to every message.  I tried to be polite, gracious. Then, well...let's just say it was too much. Documentaries, TV movies about scams, and confidence types...

having seen 'The Tinder Swindler' and having had close friends get duped by cat-fishers, I would have hoped I am too saavy. But if course, I am not. No one is immune. I've sat through intense emotional mind f@cks with friends who have been thusly victimized.  Throw in 'The Most Hated Man on the Internet' and it's enough to make a person throw their phone across the room. If western (Anglo-American) culture were less prudish about sex and nudity, would revenge porn even been a thing? Don't get me wrong, I've been irked enough to contemplate a billboard ('Do you recognise this penis?' with a little profile pic of the actual person) but that is only in the earliest petty moments. I would much rather treat myself to a 'spa-hard' session and a gorgeous meal with favourite company as my form of revenge. So much more cathartic and satisfying.

I recently re-watched a few movies that were 'Happily Ever After' fodder growing up. 'Pretty Woman,' etc. But the ones I come back to the most are things like 'Murphy's Romance,' 'Heartburn,' 'A New Kind of Love,' 'The Runaway Bride,' 'Auntie Mame.'  'Pretty Woman' just pisses me off. 'The Way We Were,' well....Hubble is too much like the Wasp version of my former husband for my liking, cowardice and all.  

'When Harry Met Sally...'? 

That old question: can men and women ever be friends, I ponder this lately, especially whilst I glower at the visage of the co-parent.  Perhaps, colleagues, perhaps business partners. But I'm letting go of the myth that we were ever friends. We weren't and we are certainly not now. That makes me sad, because I genuinely want everyone to get along.  I'm not saying we holiday as a blended family, but it would be nice to not be continually gaslit. 

Back in the early days of our time as a couple - pre-littles and pre-hound - we dovetailed but weren't really friends. We became lovers straightway.  I waited for friendship to evolve but if I am honest, it never did. It wasn't that everything was one-sided, it's just that neither of us were ever actually playing to or allowed the other one to play to our innate strengths. We pidgeon-holed one another in stereotypical gender roles, hid parts of ourselves away in shame, fear, or both.  

When it came to socializing, we were fortunate that our social groups occasionally intersected and played well together. 

I'm not a natural extrovert and in my 20s, I was so conditioned to be pleasing and 'of use,' well...I don't miss that Rachel. If anything, I'd like a few 'Being Erica' episodes of my own, schooled in what I know now...I would try so hard to be the stereotype, it eventually made me physically ill. So now? We have to treat it as business. Straight up, no frippery. Convivial, most of the time. But not a friendship. 

Letting of of that myth, setting it free against the backdrop of a new moon has kicked up a host of other feelings. But it feels right, especially when I am not the one insisting we're friends in real life or anywhere else. I just want the collaboration of raising beautiful humans to be equitable and to take sweat equity into account. Does that have to involve going to the mattresses?  Maybe I shouldn't have been watching 'The Godfather,' followed by 'All the Old Knives,' when I started looking at mediators. 

In the meantime, I am genuinely curious: does being a sugar baby come with a pension or a contract?