I originally thought I could just play around, fake a little romance, and coast by.
It didn’t take long to realize how wrong I was.
I was still far too naive, completely clueless about how the real world worked.
Men weren’t nearly as easy to fool or manipulate as I had pictured.
I had planned to target educated, respectable men.
My goal was to trade a kiss or two for a decent living.
Yet I couldn’t fool a single one of them.
These men had zero patience for taking things slow; they wanted to take full advantage of me on the very first meeting.
At most, they would buy me a movie ticket, walk me down the street, or treat me to an ice cream cone.
In the end, I came away with nothing, walking back to my tiny rented room on an empty stomach.
Those so-called respectable men seemed refined and polite on the surface.
Yet the moment we met, they would pry into my education and background, sizing up every detail of my life.
Their cold calculations made the rules of the game crystal clear to me.
“They’ll only welcome you if you have something valuable to offer in return,” I realized bitterly.
If you had nothing to give, they had no problem using a cheap ice cream cone to buy a kiss and push for whatever else they could get.
The harsh truth finally sank in.
If I was going to sell myself, I might as well be completely upfront about it and stop clinging to foolish illusions.
Women like that little porcelain doll were still living in a fantasy, unable to see these encounters for the cold transactions they were.
Only those who had been dragged through pure misery—like my mother and me—could see through the illusion entirely.
In that quiet, heavy moment, I missed my mother more than ever.