The XX Factor: What women really think.

What's So Wrong With Dreaming?

I don't know that I've ever had the sugar-daddy fantasy, but I suppose I had expectations, because after I got married I remember having the revelation that my husband was never going to care about money or know anything about managing money, so I was going to have to learn all that stuff.

But, I guess my question is, what's so wrong with having a fantasy?

I may not have had the sugar-daddy fantasy, but I have certainly had the winning-the-lottery fantasy-many times. And I think they are comparable in a lot of ways-they are really about hoping that you will be taken care of and let off the hook, at least for a short while. Fantasizing about these things is a little vacation from the stresses of life.

Now I know there is a difference, too. You can't really do anything to make the winning-the-lottery fantasy come true-at most you'll lose a couple of bucks-while you can decide that you really do want to marry a rich guy and do whatever it takes to make it happen and might end up losing your identity. Maybe.

And, believe me, some days I kick myself because frankly, it never ever in a million years occurred to me to marry for money or even to look for a guy with money or even to think about money. In fact, I was turned off by business-types. In high school, a friend of my sister's had an incredibly thorough checklist for what she wanted in a husband, down to a specific height range. No, me, I had a different kind of fantasy. I was always attracted to artists: actors, musicians, filmmakers, writers.

More than being poor, I was terrified of being ordinary, normal, middle-class, like everyone else. Yes, you can call me April Wheeler. This is no doubt why I fell in love with the book Revolutionary Road when I first read it in grad school many years ago (aside from the brilliant writing by the extremely under-appreciated Richard Yates). Yes, I was terrified of being Frank and April Wheeler. (Now that I'm older, and I've revisited the Wheelers in the book and the movie, my opinion of them has changed quite a bit.)

I remember saying to my punk high school boyfriend (yes, I am Gen X, not Y-as is Abby Ellin, whom I went to graduate school with) that I was worried that someday I'd end up living in the suburbs married to a fat doctor. Would that I was married to a fat doctor now! Preferably one in private practice!

But no, all I wanted in life was to marry my high school boyfriend, move to New York, and live la vie boheme.

That didn't happen. Because there is a difference between our fantasy lives and our real lives.

But I digress. My point, ladies, is that fantasies are thoughts, and thoughts are free and should have free range. They are a way of trying things on for size, of working things out. I've fantasized about having sex with people I'd never really have sex with, killing people who have slighted me when of course I would never really kill anyone (I hope), relatives dying (God forbid) and leaving me a lot of money, but that doesn't mean I go out and hire a hit man. These are fantasies, not life plans. And there is a big difference.