I didn’t go out looking for a sugar daddy. I wasn’t scrolling sites or sliding into DMs. 

Honestly, I didn’t even think people like me did things like that.

I was just a tired university student – the first in my family – broke, lonely and nursing a warm cider at a dodgy pub that offered five-dollar schnitzels and student discounts on Wednesdays. 

That’s where I met him.

He was a barfly. Always perched at the end of the bar with a neat drink and a book he never seemed to finish. He was older – old enough to be my father – but he had a quiet presence that didn’t feel predatory. 

He was kind and polite. He asked questions and listened like he meant it. I think that’s what attracted me to him at first – the fact that he really listened.

We started talking casually every week or so. Then more regularly. He remembered my name. Then my course. Then my mother’s name after I told him she’d been unwell.

It was an unlikely friendship. He never flirted, never crossed a line. Not until the day he did – gently, respectfully – and even then, he gave me room to walk away.

As a broke student, our pseudonymous author began a transactional relationship with an older man who paid off her student debt in exchange for intimate companionship

As a broke student, our pseudonymous author began a transactional relationship with an older man who paid off her student debt in exchange for intimate companionship

He said he’d been thinking about how hard I was working. That it wasn’t right that someone so bright had to struggle just to stay in school.

He said he had money – more than he needed – and that helping me would bring him joy, and maybe – if I didn’t mind – I could spend more time with him. 

It was awkward, sure. My brain screamed: What are you doing? You know what this arrangement is. This is shameful. This is dangerous.

But my gut told me this wasn’t some cliché. This wasn’t a predator with a wallet and an ego to stroke. This was a man who had something I needed – and who needed something I could give. It felt, strangely, like kindness.

The first time was awkward – of course it was.

There was no pretending this wasn’t a line we were crossing. But he was gentle, almost nervous. He asked if I was okay more than once. He gave me space to say no.

It wasn’t great sex, but I hadn’t had great sex with anyone at that stage in my life.

And afterwards, there was no crude transaction – no envelope on the nightstand. He asked what I needed. Rent? Tuition? Groceries? Then, within a week, it was sorted.

What we had was never flashy. There were no lavish gifts, no expensive dinners. I didn’t feel like a ‘sugar baby’ in the way Gen Z girls use the term today.

But suddenly, I could breathe. I could buy proper food. I could go home to see family on the other side of the country without putting it on a credit card I’d never pay off.

I wasn’t worried about keeping the lights on, and for the first time in my life, I could properly focus – on my studies, on internships that didn’t pay but opened doors, on building a future I had started to believe wasn’t meant for poor girls like me.

'One of my friends made a snide comment about "daddy issues" but I brushed it off' (stock image posed by model)

‘One of my friends made a snide comment about “daddy issues” but I brushed it off’ (stock image posed by model)

There were unwritten rules we both respected. I didn’t bring other people into it – never mentioned boyfriends or exes; in return, he didn’t try to control me. We didn’t lie to one another, and we never pretended it was anything other than what it was: a harmless little arrangement built on loneliness and mutual benefit, yes; but also something gentler. Something real.

Over time, like in all relationships, the intimacy waned. It became less about sex and more about companionship. Sometimes we’d go months without anything sexual happening. We’d meet, have dinner, talk about books, politics, music. He’d ask about my essays, and I’d help him set up a dating profile that he never used. We’d be together, but not tethered.

I never told my friends. A few suspected something – perhaps it was the sudden ease with which I paid for things, or the way I no longer had to stress over rent.

One friend, perhaps trying to get a confession out of me, made a snide comment about ‘daddy issues’. I laughed it off. What could I possibly say when I was sleeping with a man old enough to be my father who was paying my tuition and expenses?

But the truth is, I had friends in university whose families paid for everything – their rent, their fees, their petrol – and they weren’t judged. They were lucky. I just found my luck in a different place.

He died years later, when I was in my 40s, married and a mother.

It was peaceful.

I was notified by his lawyer – he’d left a letter for me, after all that time. It was short and kind. He said I had made the loneliest years of his life feel less empty and that he was proud of me.

I cried for days.

Not just for him, but for the end of that strange, beautiful chapter of my life. A chapter that gave me so much – security, confidence, a career, a better future – but also taught me about boundaries, respect and the complicated and unpredictable ways we care for each other.

'He died years later, when I was in my 40s... He'd left a letter for me. It was short and kind. He said I had made those years feel less empty and that he was proud of me' (stock image)

‘He died years later, when I was in my 40s… He’d left a letter for me. It was short and kind. He said I had made those years feel less empty and that he was proud of me’ (stock image)

Today, I’m doing well.

I’ve built a life I’m proud of – a life that I wouldn’t have had without that start. I’ve even been able to help out my family, something I never imagined was possible.

I know my story isn’t typical. I’ve heard the horror stories – the coercion, the power imbalance, the manipulation. I’m not here to say sugar arrangements are always safe or easy – they’re not – but mine worked because it was honest and kind.

There were no mind games, no emotional debts, just mutual respect, clear boundaries and genuine connection.

If I could offer any advice to someone considering this path, it would be this: trust your gut. Don’t ignore red flags of secrecy, pressure, control, humiliation.

If it doesn’t feel safe, it isn’t. But if it feels honest, if you’re treated with dignity, if it serves you as much as it serves them – then maybe it’s not something to be ashamed of.

Not every love story is conventional. And not every kind of care has a label that makes sense. But that doesn’t make it any less real.

  •  As told to Rebel Wylie. Elysia Kailey Thorne is a pseudonym. 

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