I Joined Seeking Arrangement After My Divorce. Ten Years Later, I Looked Again

There are certain things I tried after my divorce that married me probably would've raised an eyebrow at.

Seeking Arrangement was one of them.

I had been married for years.

Then suddenly I wasn't.

I was figuring out dating again, figuring myself out again, and honestly, I was curious.

I had heard about Seeking Arrangement, the website where younger women could meet financially successful men who were looking for some kind of mutually beneficial relationship.

At least, that was how I understood it.

Maybe he wanted someone to go to dinner with.

Maybe he traveled a lot and wanted a companion.

Maybe he enjoyed helping a woman financially because he could.

Maybe I could enjoy someone's company, have some new experiences, and get a little help with everyday life at the same time.

I wasn't sitting there thinking I had discovered some secret retirement plan.

I was curious.

So I signed up.

And what I found was very different from what I thought I was signing up for.

Apparently Some of the Sugar Daddies Were Running Low on Sugar

I was on Seeking Arrangement for a few months, and one of the first things that surprised me was how many of the men didn't seem to have the kind of money you would expect someone calling himself a sugar daddy to have.

I know that sounds funny.

It was funny.

At least after I stopped being annoyed by it.

I wasn't expecting a private jet to pick me up outside my house.

I wasn't looking for somebody to finance an entirely new life for me.

But if we're both joining a website built around financially successful men meeting women interested in an arrangement, I think it's fair to assume the financial part is actually going to exist.

For plenty of the men I talked to, it barely did.

Then there was the bigger problem.

A lot of them seemed far more interested in sex than companionship, traveling together, going places, spending time together, or helping make my everyday life easier.

That wasn't what I wanted.

And I'm not saying every man on the website was the same.

I'm talking about my experience.

I also wasn't judging women who were looking for something different.

If two grown people know exactly what they're agreeing to and they're comfortable with it, that's their business.

The problem for me was that what I thought an arrangement meant and what many of the men I met thought it meant were two very different things.

Eventually, I got tired of sorting through it.

It started feeling like another dating site, except everybody had arrived carrying very different definitions of what the dating was supposed to look like.

So I left.

Then Another Woman Mentioned Seeking Years Later

I hadn't thought seriously about that website in a long time.

Then recently I was talking to another woman who told me she was interested in checking it out.

Immediately, my brain went back ten years.

I remembered the conversations.

The expectations.

The men who weren't looking for what I was looking for.

And yes, the alleged sugar daddies who appeared to be experiencing a sugar shortage.

But ten years is a long time online.

Dating apps have changed.

People have changed.

The way we meet people has definitely changed.

So I started wondering whether Seeking had changed too.

Turns out, it has changed quite a bit.

Seeking Doesn't Call Itself a Sugar Dating Site Anymore

This part genuinely surprised me.

Seeking Arrangement eventually became Seeking, and the company now presents itself as a luxury dating platform.

More importantly, Seeking's current rules specifically prohibit sugar dating and paid companionship.

According to the company's own safety rules, members can't offer or request companionship, dating, intimacy, gifts, allowances, financial support, or other benefits in exchange for personal interaction.

Seeking also says references to sugar babies, sugar daddies, allowances and similar arrangements can get profiles flagged or accounts suspended.

That is a pretty dramatic change from the website I remember.

The entire reason many people knew the name Seeking Arrangement years ago was because of the arrangement part.

Now the company is saying that type of arrangement isn't what the website is for.

So if you're hearing about Seeking through its old reputation and thinking you're about to sign up for the same website women were talking about ten years ago, I think that's worth knowing before you ever make a profile.

The name may sound familiar.

The rules aren't the same. 

It Isn't Cheap Either

Another thing that changed is the price.

Beginning January 1, 2026, Seeking announced that its Platinum membership would cost $150 for 30 days or $380 for 90 days.

Diamond membership went to $375 for 30 days.

I had to read that twice.

Three hundred and seventy-five dollars for thirty days of online dating is enough to make me expect somebody to personally come to my house, photograph me, write my profile and screen the dates.

I'm NOT kidding.

Mostly.

But the price matters because expensive doesn't automatically mean safer, better people or better matches.

That's something I understand much more clearly now than I did when I was newly divorced.

Money can make something look exclusive.

It can't tell you whether the person on the other side of the screen is honest.

A Wealthy Profile Doesn't Tell Me Who I'm Dealing With

This is probably the biggest difference between how I would've looked at a site like Seeking then and how I would look at online dating now.

I would pay much more attention to the person than the packaging.

A beautiful profile can be fake.

A successful sounding person can lie.

Someone can tell you exactly what you want to hear until they figure out what they can get from you.

And that isn't just a Seeking issue.

It's an online dating issue.

The Federal Trade Commission continues to warn about romance scams where someone creates an online relationship, moves the conversation away from the dating platform, builds trust and eventually asks for money.

Some scammers claim they need help with an emergency.

Others introduce cryptocurrency or investment opportunities.

That last part is worth thinking about.

If I'm on a website expecting to meet somebody financially successful and the financially successful man suddenly needs me to send him money, we have taken a very unexpected turn.

No.

My purse will be remaining closed.

The FTC's advice is clear about sending money or gifts to an online romantic interest you haven't met in person.

And honestly, that advice makes sense whether we're talking about Seeking, Tinder, Facebook, Instagram or somebody who magically appears in your messages telling you you're the most fascinating woman he's ever seen after reading two sentences of your profile.

I Understand Why Women Are Curious

Here's where I don't want this conversation to turn into judgment.

Because I get it.

I was curious too.

Sometimes when we're starting over, we're open to things we would've never considered before.

We're trying to figure out what we like now.

We're wondering what dating could look like outside the traditional version we've already experienced.

Maybe the idea of dating a financially comfortable man sounds appealing.

Maybe you're tired of carrying everything yourself.

Maybe you like older men.

Maybe you want to travel.

Maybe you're just nosy and want to see who's on there.

I understand all of that because I clicked the signup button myself.

What I don't believe anymore is that a website's label tells me what kind of experience I'm going to have.

People are still people.

Some are honest.

Some aren't.

Some know exactly what they want.

Some will agree with whatever you say because they're hoping to get something completely different later.

And some apparently join websites they really can't afford to be on.

I met a few of those.

My Experience Didn't Make Me Against It. It Made Me More Realistic.

Looking back, I don't regret trying Seeking Arrangement.

I learned something from it.

Mostly, I learned that I wasn't interested in convincing myself something worked for me just because it sounded interesting in theory.

That took me a little while to understand after my divorce.

There were things I tried because I was discovering who I was outside of being married.

Some fit.

Some didn't.

Seeking didn't.

After a few months, I realized I was putting energy into conversations with men whose expectations didn't line up with mine.

I didn't need to keep forcing it.

So I logged off and kept moving.

That's probably what I would tell the woman who recently made me think about all of this again.

Go into any dating site with your eyes open.

Know what you want before somebody else starts explaining what you should want.

Don't confuse money with character.

Don't ignore something that feels strange because somebody's profile looks impressive.

And don't feel embarrassed if you try something and later decide it isn't for you.

We are allowed to change our minds.

Ten Years Later, This Is What I Know

If I joined Seeking today, I wouldn't be the same woman who joined it after my divorce.

And Seeking isn't the same website either.

The company has changed its name, its positioning, its rules and its prices.

But the part I would pay the most attention to hasn't changed.

The person.

That's where I think we sometimes get distracted when dating online.

We look at the website.

The photos.

The job title.

The lifestyle.

The promises.

The idea of what the relationship could become.

Meanwhile, the most important information is usually much quieter.

How does this person talk to me?

Do their words match what they actually do?

Can I say no without being pressured?

Can I ask questions without getting a strange reaction?

Does something feel off even though I can't explain it yet?

Ten years ago, I eventually listened to myself and left because what I was finding wasn't what I wanted.

Today, I would probably listen sooner.

Not because I know everything now.

Believe me, life continues finding creative ways to remind me that I don't.

But I know myself better.

And maybe that's the part of starting over nobody talks about enough.

We try things.

We change our minds.

We learn what fits.

We walk away from what doesn't.

And sometimes years later, we look back at the woman who clicked that signup button and understand her a little better.

She was curious.

She was trying something new.

She was figuring out what worked for her and what didn’t.

#EvolvingWomanhood

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