You know that part of the horror movie when you’re screaming at the screen, “Girl, don’t go in there! What are you thinking??”

Well, yeah. I know from firsthand experience what that girl was thinking. I know because I’ve been that girl. And being in denial will allow your brain to trick you into doing some wild things, like going towards the scary sound in the basement during a power outage, and you’re home alone.

In my case, no. There was no basement, and there was no scary noise.

But there was a supposed sugar daddy named Evan. And there were definitely reasons for me not to go in there.

For your nerves, I’m going to tell you that I eventually did listen to my intuition. I realized before I was in too deep that Evan had not a single cent to his name and was scamming sugar babies left and right. And, because I don’t want you to fall for your own Evan (or, if you’re a sugar daddy, the baby version of Evan), I’m going to walk you through the play-by-play.

So, let’s start from the beginning.

The introduction

The way I met Evan should have been my first red flag: the boy messaged me on Instagram. Until that point, I had only ever met sugar daddies or romantic partners on dating platforms. But when he slid into my DMs, I thought, “Hey, what’s the harm?”

Plus, he had plenty of followers and seemed to be living a pretty lavish lifestyle from his IG stories, so I figured I could trust him.

That was my first mistake, friends. Don’t blindly trust someone on social media who claims to be a sugar daddy. Buying followers isn’t that expensive, and with some editing magic, everyone can make themself look like a billionaire.

But, turns out, there were plenty more red flags to come.

The first red flags

The more I talked to Evan, the more his story honestly seemed legit to me. When I asked him why he wasn’t looking for sugar babies on a sugar dating site, he told me that he didn’t like that his messaging was limited and that he never got responses from women on there. Looking back, it seems so obvious. His messaging was limited because his funds were limited. And women probably weren’t responding to him because they probably had a better radar than I did at the time.

I asked him what his previous relationships with sugar babies were like, and I think this is where the love bombing started. He was a pro at talking badly about his exes in the same breath that he would make me feel like the most special girl in the world. He would say things like, “If the other sugar babies I met in my past were even half as wonderful and beautiful as you, I’d be married to them by now. But they were all shallow and manipulative. I think maybe the universe was just keeping me busy until it was time for us to meet.”

Look, if you’ve fallen for this kind of emotional trap, please accept my virtual hug. It’s not easy to be this vulnerable about my mistakes on a public platform because, looking back, I can see how silly I was to trust this man. But love bombing is a heck of an experience, and a lot of people fall for it.

Anyway, it gets worse. Let’s keep going.

The denial is setting in

After Evan had laid the groundwork to get me all starry-eyed for him, he made his big play. He invited me to a rooftop party where he was going to be with some of his work friends, he claimed. He was so excited to meet me and wanted to make sure that it was in a public place so that I would feel safe. How thoughtful of him, right?

So, I showed up to this rooftop party. And to be honest, it was just as swanky and upscale as I expected. And there was Evan, ready to swoop me up as soon as I walked through the door and take me over to the bar to buy me my first drink. I asked him where his friends were, and he said that they had all bailed on him, but he came anyway because he had been looking forward to meeting me all week. Suspicious right? Well, I chose to be flattered.

One thing that I did notice was that even though his friends were missing, Evan seemed to know everyone at the bar. I chalked this up to, “Well, this is probably his normal hangout.” I would learn later that he used to work here and was still buddy enough with the bartender to get free drinks. But as I said, denial was setting in.

The night went on, and Evan was a perfectly normal guy and actually a really sweet date. He “paid” for all my drinks, we danced, we stepped outside for some fresh air, and he took every opportunity he could to ask me about myself.

At the end of the night, he paid for my Uber home, and we made plans to see each other again.

The (almost) moment of clarity

Over the course of the next week, I couldn’t stop talking about Evan, who hadn’t stopped messaging me after our date. And, eventually, my roommate, who is also a sugar baby, lost her patience.

“Did you guys talk about what a sugar relationship would look like between the two of you?” she asked.

No.

“Do you know what he does for work?”

No.

“Wasn’t it kind of odd that he took you out drinking instead of a more formal first date?”

Well, I guess maybe.

“And what did you say about him bad-mouthing his exes?”

At this point, I clammed up. I could see where my roommate was going with this. And I didn’t like it. I told her that this wasn’t my first sugar relationship and that I could take care of myself without her help. If she didn’t want to hear me talk about someone that I was actually excited about, I would shut up.

Later, my roommate would tell me that she already could see the effects of the love bombing on my doe-eyed face.

“Listen,” she said, more gently now. “Please just keep me in the loop. I won’t judge. I just want to know when you go on your dates, to make sure you’re safe. You know the drill.”

And that, friends, was yet another red flag: my closest friend and fellow sugar baby didn’t trust the situation. But I forged ahead anyway.

The moment of truth

The ultimate red flag came a week later. Evan and I had been talking every single day, and most of our conversations were about how much he wanted to take me with him to his next trip to Ibiza or Tokyo. He talked about wanting to show me his apartment. He told me that he was so excited to show me off to his friends. Usually, I cringe at a “good morning, beautiful” text. But from Evan, I was over the moon.

Then one morning, his mood totally changed. His responses were short. He was distant from me. I flat-out asked him what was wrong.

At first, he said that he was dealing with a work thing and that he didn’t want to ruin my day, so maybe we should just talk later. But, friends, you already know that I was way too “in” the scam to accept that response. So I told him something like, “What am I here for if not to give you some emotional support?”

His response was, “The thing is, I don’t really need emotional support (although you’re so sweet for offering it, I love that about you.) I need someone who can receive a kind of big sum of money into their bank account on my behalf, just temporarily until I can reinvest it. Some dumb legal trading regulations are getting in my way, and I might lose one of my biggest clients if I don’t get this done today. I know it’s a big ask, and I’m so embarrassed to ask, but if you can help me with this, I promise to make it up to you.”

And there it was: the scam. Laid out so perfectly. It had time sensitivity. It had gravitas. It had the right level of self-deprecation while also maintaining a sense of “this isn’t my fault.” And of course, it wouldn’t have had a shot at working if he hadn’t already built a relationship of trust and understanding and (on my end) true affection.

It was the moment in which I found myself at the top of the basement staircase, wondering whether I should move towards the scary sound.

Thankfully, my intuition finally kicked in. The voice screaming at the screen was my own gut saying, “Girl, get out of there.”

And I did.

The takedown

After screenshotting all of our conversations and blocking Evan, I went online to do some digging of my own. On my local sugar dating community forum, I found out that the guy I had been dealing with was a full-time scammer. I added my own experience to the online conversation, not only to make myself feel better but so that other sugar babies could know that he was still active.

Luckily, the other sugar babies on the forum had met him on a dating platform and already reported him (which is why he had switched to Instagram).

The only thing that I really had left to do was reflect on how to take better care of myself in the future. And looking back on the story with Evan from start to finish, I’m proud of how much I’ve changed since that experience so that I can now identify and act on red flags as soon as they come up!