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THE PHENOMENON OF sugar daddy and sugar baby relationships – where a younger woman begins a relationship with an older, wealthy man – seems to be taking off in Ireland.

According to Seeking Arrangement, one of the most popular sites offering a place for sugar babies to meet sugar daddies, more than 9000 Irish students have signed up for it – with UCD leading the way in terms of new participants this year.

Chart toppers UCD UCD

One Irish sugar baby, currently in college here, spoke to DailyEdge.ie anonymously about why she chose to do it:

I do it so I can lead a better lifestyle. I can go on a date, get done up and they can bring me to a nice dinner and I feel pampered. Or if we meet up during the day, they can pay for a coffee or something. It’s not pre-determined beforehand.

So, does going on a sugar daddy website feel like a business transaction of sorts?

It’s more like a regular dating website for me. You still chat to people and have to feel whether there is a connection there. It’s very narrow minded to think of it as a business transaction.

Shutterstock / Eugene Sergeev Shutterstock / Eugene Sergeev / Eugene Sergeev

The arrangement sites that exist are indeed set up much like a dating website – where people upload photos and message each other based on certain preferences.

The sugar baby we spoke to is currently in a long-term “arrangement” right now with a man – but is it all about money?

It’s not really about financial gain – obviously that’s a plus – but it’s more about the improvement in lifestyle. I could never afford to go out to fancy restaurants or the like without an arrangement.

[image alt="split check" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2015/10/5466878315_f5601f5070_b-630x472.jpg" width="630" height="472" credit-url="flickr.com" credit-source="Flickr%2FDan4th" class="alignnone" /end]

Trying to dig down into whether or not these arrangements are sexual is quite difficult, as each relationship differs on a case-by-case basis:

Some guys go on the website just looking for that, but it all depends on how you perceive the site. If I didn’t have any intention of having a long term relationship and we have no interests in common then it would go no further.

In my situation, I see it that we’re dating. We set up our own rules. You’ve got to build a level of trust there, you want to get to know the person – to get exactly what you want. That’s what I like about it – I’m very much in control.

Shutterstock / Rabyesang Shutterstock / Rabyesang / Rabyesang

She says she has been using the site for 8 months now, after coming across it in a magazine and then researching it online:

I’ve had two long term arrangements so far – one ended because he left the country. I am in the middle of one right now.

Despite busy schedules, she meets up quite regularly with her current long-term arrangement:

I have college and I work so I wouldn’t have a lot of time and he travels a lot – so we would probably see each other around two times a month. We stay in touch all the time though. It’ll be finishing soon though, as I’m wrapping up college and going travelling – but we’ll be keeping in touch.

SeekingArrangement SeekingArrangement

Apparently, the stereotype of men on the site being very old isn’t something she has found to be true in real life:

Only the other day I got a message from a guy who was 29. He wasn’t sure about how the whole thing worked. He was looking for a normal girlfriend, but it’s hard to meet people in bars and clubs.

But it’s safe to say that men with no means at all probably won’t get very far in the process. Is there a limit to what she would accept as a gift, though?

Of course. If someone offered to pay all my college fees I would say no. That’s way too much.

So, wrapping up, she says that she doesn’t like to tell people in her day-to-day life about her sugar daddy relationships:

I’m not going to tell anyone about it. I won’t tell my friends or family as people perceive it in such a negative way – even though the truth is the complete opposite. If it did end up being serious with somebody from there, I wouldn’t tell people where we met. I’m quite a private person.

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