It fascinates me that a lot of the stories that I publish are true or based on true stories. There are a lot of this-has-to-be-fiction too-good-to-be-true true stories. Thinking about my stress lately, I thought of a college friend, a girl, who said, “I need a wife.” Meaning: someone to take care of all of the little things so she could concentrate on the big projects. A personal assistant, so to speak.
When I was a freshman in college, I admired and respected two senior girls. They were best friends and roommates. I hoped I’d be like them when I was older. Perhaps they sensed this in me and wanted to make me in their image, because they took me under their wing and I took the bait.
What I found most fabulous about them (whether this makes me shallow or crazy or a poor judge of character with eskew morals is for you to decide) was this story. I think I actually told them they were my idols during the time this was happening…
Both of them were avid readers of Craigslist. I guess they originally used it for apartments, then got into entertaining themselves with “rants & raves,” and then eventually started posting stuff themselves when they were lonely and bored. So I don’t get in trouble, I’ll change their names (as I do in my magazines, haha) to Eva and Emma.
Eva, the one who said the comment about needing a wife, posted under the “platonic w for m” section one day seeking a man who wanted to work for “two beautiful females” as an “assistant.” Someone to run their errands—the grocery store, the pharmacy, FedEx/Kinkos, perhaps clean—so they could focus on the “more important things in life.” Which would be, who knows, getting good grades or looking for post-college jobs… I mean, really it seems ridiculous now, but maybe that’s what I loved about them.
From what I understand, they posted a lot of over-the-top stuff on the site when they were bored or tipsy, so they may have been only half-serious. But after this post they got a proliferation of responses (who knew?) They weeded through them and then “interviewed” the several men who seemed to fit the bill (”serious and not creepy”). I wish I knew what kind of crazies they interviewed, because those tidbits could probably make a story on their own. And what kind of maniacal young women meet face-to-face with strangers from cyberspace so they can “interview” them to be their bitch?
But anyway, I digress. I know that Emma had a serious boyfriend at the time and I think Eva was sleeping with Em’s boyfriend’s roommate, but she had a lot of guys that she kept around so I can’t be sure. What I am sure of is that the girls wanted to be absolutely positive (as much as they could be anyway) that this guy wasn’t a sick f—. So again, it would be entertaining to know all the freaks and geeks, but I don’t know. All I know is that they did actually find their guy. His name was Charlie.
Charlie was in his mid-forties, a Brooklynite, Jewish, Republican, and an AA spokesperson having spent more than half his life being an addict. (I have to interject again, sorry, but—grown men who use little boy nicknames, have conflicting views of the world, and have a history of drug addiction are probably the type of person you would meet online and therefore the type you would never want to actually meet.)
I never met Charlie (I obvi don’t think he sounds good on paper, either), but I do remember visiting E & E’s apt. one day, right after he had stopped by delievering their groceries for the week. Apparently, they would give him weekly lists of errands and he would do them. He was not paid. He did not get any love. In addition, he also gave them weekly “allowances” of cash, usually $50-$100, he took them clothes shopping, and he treated them to restaurant dinners on a fairly regular basis. I was stunned and amazed. A sugar daddy that gets nothing in return except the company of two college-age girls?
I was suspicious one day when Eva modeled her latest shopping spree loot to me. Who knows, maybe something did happen. Although she did say he pretty much repulsed her and Em beyond the confines of “normal” conversation, and besides he was their assistant, not their friend—it wasn’t like that. They only met with him in public places; he was not allowed upstairs in their apartment. So she said.
Maybe he was just a lonely old man. Maybe he was gay. Or maybe he was really just a sick f—. The girls ended up firing him sometime before graduation. I think it was winter. I asked Emma why and she said that they “just didn’t need him anymore.”
I’ve known many people and heard many unbelievable stories in my life. I usually forget as I don’t have much time to reminisce, and I have to read everyone else’s “fiction” on a daily basis. But this story sticks with me, maybe because I wished I could be them and tried to emulate them in every way, and the assistant thing only made me think they were cooler.
It really wasn’t that long ago, but that was more sick than cool. Now I think they were probably a little nutty, and I certainly had something backwards upstairs. Or maybe I was just a lemming. When you’re younger you trust older people, whether your parents, your teachers, your priest, or the senior girls. You think they know better.
But maybe why I’m thinking about it now is that they had this power over a man twice their age with no strings attached. No sex, and they got all the benefits. Maybe they needed a father figure. I know at least Emma had a deadbeat dad. Maybe at the time, I needed a parent figure. More importantly, a mother figure. My own mother was—and is—wonderful, but I needed female role models who were powerful. Powerful to me at the time meant power over men; the weaker sex, we are. They exuded that power. How cool they are, I thought. But they also proved to me that, really, the world is your oyster if you make it so. You really, truly, can have it all.