Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man

being. It’s admitting weakness and failure to a woman, and to a man, that’s the worst thing in the world. We want women to think of us as strong and capable-especially the women we love. We’re raised to believe and internalize the age-old notion that we’re supposed to be the protector and the provider; when that’s in a man’s mind, there’s little room for fantasies featuring a financial princess who swoops in and takes responsibility for our subsistence. It’s one thing to accept gifts from a woman who likes to give them, but if she’s helping a man eat and providing a place for him to lay his head and buying his clothes and making it so he can survive because he can’t do it on his own, he’s not going to stick around for long. Don’t believe me? Why do you think there are so many single-parent families and absentee fathers? Some men leave because they can’t take being in the home if they can’t provide for their women and children. It’s unfortunate that these two things are interconnected, but a man can’t see himself being a good father if he can’t see himself providing for his family. In our minds and in yours, and the collective mind of society, the two-fatherhood and income-are inextricably linked. So if he’s not providing, the last thing he wants is someone-particularly his woman-accusing him of being less than a man. As a result, he’ll leave before he signs up to be taken care of by a “sugar mama.”

This doesn’t, however, mean that men aren’t willing to even entertain the offer of help. That you’re willing to open your heart and make a personal sacrifice so that we can have something better for ourselves is never lost on us. Indeed, it tells us something about the kind of woman you are-what kind of partner we might expect if we decide to hitch our wagons together. For sure, Marjorie won me over with her willingness to be selfless. She was there when I went from making a lot of money to making absolutely no money. I’d just given up my radio show in Los Angeles, and my TV show, Steve Harvey’s Big Time, had been canceled; to make matters worse, it was summer, a difficult time for comedy tours, so from June through August, I wasn’t going to make money touring. I was also tied up in an asset division case and had moved to New York without any real home in which to settle. Marjorie saw all of this but she didn’t say, “You know what? I’m not going to get more involved with you.” Instead, this woman, who is extremely strong and independent, who was living in her own home, helping to run her own family’s successful business, raising her own kids, and living her own life, offered to open her home to me. She literally took me to her house in Memphis and said, “Steve, we can live here.”

As I looked around, I said to myself, “Well, um, this is cute and all.” She’d decorated her home beautifully and she’s an amazing housekeeper (her home was immaculate), but it was small and there was no gate. I kept trying to explain to her that up until that very moment, after years of struggle, I’d been doing really well professionally and had every intention of doing even better going forward, these setbacks notwithstanding, and that a home without a gate could get really tricky for a celebrity. But none of that mattered to her. She kept telling me, “You don’t have to tell me that.” She had her own money and her own struggles, but she was riding out the latter and was willing to share her money with me, as long as I came to the table with the things she required: that I act like a father to her children, that I was a faithful husband, that I was a partner with whom she could share her dreams of the future, and that I could make her feel safe.

For her, everything was about family and the quality of her relationship, which told me where she was in her life and that what she wanted was much bigger than a bank account.

All this myth debunking is meant to help you understand that it’s time to let go of the whole notion that the reason strong, independent women can’t find men is because we men are afraid of your power. We are not afraid of you. We applaud your success. We’re not looking for you to take care of us. We don’t have a problem with you making more money. Indeed, we want you to be happy. And we don’t revel in your being alone. We do care about attitude, however-your attitude toward material things, your attitude toward others, your attitude toward us when we’re down and going through a transition of sorts.

4

Every Sugar Daddy Ain’t Sweet

I get why it’s so easy to get sucked in.

Here’s this guy at your door bearing gifts-say it’s the latest Fendi bag, a pair of Christian Louboutins to match the hot, body-skimming dress he laid across your bed last month, or a pair of diamond earrings the size of fists and a matching bangle so sparkly it makes your wrist look like a constellation. Or those gifts might be something much more practical-a check to cover a month’s worth of rent for the condo you all spend time in, or a payment for that Chrysler you’ve been driving around town, or a date in the chair of that stylist you love who sews in your tracks just the way you (and he!) like them or gives you highlights that all the women in the office envy. Hell, he might be bringing something as basic as a bag of groceries or lunch money for the kids.

Whatever the gift, you’re happy to receive it, aren’t you? Because it keeps money in your pocket and, more important, it makes you feel like this man cares about you-wants you to look good, live comfortably, eat right, and have some of your needs and even some of your wants taken care of. Who wouldn’t sign up for that, especially if this guy is bringing these gifts and showing you what appears to be genuine affection?

But you know, back in the day, that guy was referred to as a “sugar daddy.” Sugar Daddy is a sweet person who takes care of you like your daddy would-gives you clothes, food, shelter. Delivers it all with sweetness beyond compare, but with expectations no “daddy” would ever expect of his real daughters. The sugar daddy motto: you be sweet to him, and he’ll be sweet to you.

These days, a sugar daddy has a different name: sponsor. No matter if you all call this man a “sugar daddy” or a “sponsor,” we men simply refer to him as a player and you as a woman willing to prostitute yourself without even realizing it.

Yup, I said it.

Sure, you may be getting some nice things, but honestly, accepting gifts from a guy without getting what you want in return is nothing more than an advanced form of prostitution. See, we men understand this much: there’s a “cost”-direct or indirect-associated with sex. We can buy it at the strip club or at a brothel or online, or we can take you to dinner and the movies, pay your rent, buy you some jewelry, send you to get your hair done on our dime, or hand you money. Either way, we fully expect that if we’re spending money, we’re going to get something in return: sex.

And trust me when I tell you, there is nothing sugary or sweet about giving so much of yourself to a man who, at the end of the day, is giving up so little in return. Oh, it may look like he’s giving you the world. Hell, a sugar daddy/sponsor/player will go out of his way to make it seem like he’s going all out, just for you. But a sugar daddy who is, in essence, paying for sex will never make any real, long-term sacrifice, will never pursue anything that substantially chips away at his own bottom line. He’ll play the game as long as it goes undetected and will not interfere with a relationship that’s important to him.

He will not pay your rent if it means he can’t pay his.

He will not buy you a car if he doesn’t have one for himself.

He will not buy you groceries if his refrigerator isn’t full.

He will not take you to the hot party if a woman he cares for more wants to go too.

And he most certainly will not fall in love with you just because you’re giving him some tail.

In my line of business, I see this all the time. Men with means-celebrities, athletes, bankers, businessmen-have one, two, three, and even more women on the side, and each one of them will be the proud recipient of a sponsorship package: they might get $2,000 for rent in a luxurious condo, maybe $700 for a car note, $300 for hair and nail appointments, an expensive pair of shoes or a dress every now and again. Tally that up, and those women have gotten something very valuable from their sugar daddies, haven’t they? They have a place to live and transportation, and they get to look good from head to toe-all on someone else’s dime. But what they’re getting from their sponsors is worth nothing more than a dime to a sugar daddy in the scheme of things; if he’s making millions, what is that little $3,000 a month costing him? The woman who’s getting that sponsorship package is worth very little-the equivalent of a drawerful of cashmere Marcoliani socks, a few fancy Hermes ties, and a pair of expensive cuff links. He might as well be flipping a quarter in her direction.

If you’re involved with a sugar daddy or sponsor, you don’t even have to ask for that quarter either. The real players always offer to help you with whatever your needs are before they’re expressed-we pick it up in conversation, see it with our own two eyes. You pull up in a car that looks like it’s on its last leg? A sugar daddy’s