Single & Fabulous? ‘Money talks – and not necessarily the language of love’

They say that New York is one of the most fast-paced cities in the world, and I found that to be true as my date introduced me to his dad after three days of knowing each other. Now I’m down for a whirlwind romance, but this was like Twister, and I was the moo-ing cow caught in it’s chaos.

I met Dean for the first time last week, after he sent me a string of photos with the ‘Getty Images’ watermark. He was either the world’s worst catfish, or using his ‘status’ as an attempt to impress me. This wasn’t my first time at the Grindr rodeo, honey.

Naturally, I screenshotted his snaps, emailed them to myself, and then dragged them into Google reverse images to find out who he was. The handsome son of a legendary sportsman, apparently. We’d originally planned to meet up for drinks, but our first date ended up being a three-way dinner with a TV network exec, followed by a rooftop party of some music industry big wig.

There was something endearing about him, but he mostly seemed disconnected. It goes without saying that these weren’t your run-of-the-mill dates, but we still hadn’t reached conversation deeper than small talk. In the morning I accompanied him to a radio interview, before spending the entire afternoon shopping for a suit for a gala he’d invited me to – only to be stood-up without explanation or apology. I decided to let it slide as I knew he had a lot going on personally, but he was officially on probation.

Our second date was a basketball game at Madison Square Garden, and then dinner with his dad at Tao. But despite all of these flash and fabulous experiences, I still felt like I didn’t know who he was as a person. We’d just finished a late night takeout that evening, when I got the first glimpse… He ordered me to “take the leftovers out to the kitchen”.

As I wondered what part of my outfit looked like a maid’s uniform, he highlighted that he’d paid for food, taken me to a ball game, and to one of New York’s infamous restaurants. Clearly his values lay in material things. Feeling initially ungrateful, I put my tail between my legs and obeyed like the bitch he wanted me to be.

It wasn’t until after that I began to seethe. How can a man invite you on a date, and then throw it in your face when you don’t play servant? Suddenly I was blinded by the glisten from the giant silver spoon hanging out of his mouth as he informed me, “you’ve had a nice day…”

Had I? Yes. But I’d also travelled 40 minutes each way to see him, taken his dog for a walk, and got yelled at in Chinese by the shopkeeper when it coiled out a turd by their ATM.

He was taken aback when I told him that I’d left his dog with a stranger in order to re-enter the shop. Erm, I just picked fecal matter up off the floor, I weren’t leaving without my damn papers! And you know I needed a joint after that. Picking up dog’s shit was one thing. Being spoken to like one was another entirely. He was skating on thin ice – and carrying a hippo on his back.

I slept facing away from him that night because I couldn’t bare to have sex with someone who made me feel so ungrateful. He’d made it abundantly clear that as he was the one with connections, access to bouji parties, and a famous dad, that he not only had ideas above his station, but also didn’t view me as an equal.

So when Dean invited me to Chicago for Memorial Day weekend with him, and instructed me to bring weed (apparently I’d gone from his bitch to his mule), I took the opportunity to read him his last rights instead. His ‘bad boy’ behaviour was not charming; just rude, immature and irritating. That perhaps he thinks he can talk to people that way because his dad is wealthy and well-known, but it’s not something I’ll tolerate. Money has its allure, but it can’t buy etiquette or respect – and certainly not love.

The thing is, I still don’t believe he’s a bad guy, just a good one that’s fallen into bad habits. It’s not uncommon for people who are born into money, to view people as possessions that they can purchase. And I’m sure there were hundreds of boys that would happily take the rubbish out, even scrub the toilets, in exchange for his lifestyle – I just wasn’t one of them. I’m down to be Cinderella, just not when she had a mop in her hand.

It’s natural to be attracted to successful men because we crave stability, and everybody wants to be on Page 6, but when it’s offered to you in exchange for your dignity, it’s worthless. It was a simple decision between money and love, and money is far easier to make, than love is to find. As Judy Garland once said: “I can live without money, I cannot live without love.”

Anthony Gilét is a London (and currently New York)-based writer, blogger and YouTuber – follow him on Twitter and Instagram. To read more from the Single & Fabulous? series click here.