I have a proposition for the group: STUPID rich Troy Barrett and anti-sugar baby Harris Drover
(Based on this post by my beloved mutual Syd)
We are all in agreement that Troy’s love language is gift giving. Well, once Brover move in together Troy starts buying Harris more and more expensive presents. He comes home with flowers multiple times a week. He upgrades a bunch of their appliances, especially the ones only Harris uses, and gets a bunch of fancy household implements. He takes Harris to fancy restaurants often. He buys Harris a nice watch to celebrate his promotion. He got him two very nice suits shortly after that; one for press events and one for date nights. He plans expensive vacations and weekend trips for whenever their schedules allow. (Harris doesn’t know this but he’s been working with Harris’ sister to sus out his dream car for Harris’ birthday.)
Harris decides to tally up Troy’s gifts and gets really freaked out by the total.
Harris is operating under the assumption that Troy has, MAX, 12 mil in the bank. He’s a hockey player, he’s a millionaire, but he’s 25 and he took a pay cut in Ottawa. He thinks all these presents are genuinely leaving a mark.
Troy Barrett’s net worth is upwards of 103M.
Troy assumes Harris knows this— Troy thinks this must be googlable information. Google says his net worth is 11M. Troy (in a rare act of self care) has never googled himself.
Harris sits Troy down (after he proposes a second spa trip) and tells him he’s not comfortable with the amount of money Troy is spending on him. Troy, who was blissfully unaware of Harris’ level of discomfort, agrees that he may be going a little too hard; and he earnestly tries to take the note.
The problem? Harris’ definition of “an appropriate amount of money to spend on your partner” is very different from Troy eight-figure-net-worth Barrett’s.
Troy thinks that Harris just wants him to space out the big gifts. He thinks that he should make his spontaneous presents less expensive, maybe plan one or two big trips for the off season and fewer weekend trips. Leave the designer for marked holidays.
Harris wants him to stop paying for things almost entirely. He’s freaking out bc (a) he doesn’t want any sugar baby allegations and (b) he’s convinced Troy is being financially irresponsible for the sake of love.
Troy keeps buying flowers, and making pricey dinner reservations (once every two weeks, when it’s his turn to plan date nights). He brings Harris coffee in the morning and buying little things for the house. Harris starts getting really frustrated bc Troy isn’t listening to him. Two weeks after the talk, Troy comes home from practice with a bouquet of roses and tickets to the Opera (he’s a stealth theatre kid he told me himself) and Harris loses it.
They get into a huge fight abt the fact that Harris asked him to stop spending money and he refuses to listen. And Troy is so lost because he did stop, he hasn’t been shopping for Harris or getting him any of the things he wants to. Harris is raising his voice, and Troy feels the fight or flight set in, specifically fight, and he cuts Harris off to announce he’s taking Chiron for a walk.
Troy makes it abt 1 km from their house before the rage turns into soul-breaking guilt and he sits down on a park bench and just breaks. Part of him is so so mad at himself for getting upset at Harris and for starting a fight and for not understanding what Harris was asking for. The other half of him is fucking devastated because this means he can’t get Harris presents anymore. Like, at all.
He’s lost his most authentic way of showing affection and he doesn’t know how to cope with the that.
