The Erotic Highway
In brief, the question is this: I'm a gentleman (early 40s) who's late in the game for getting married and having a family. While I'm sorting out exactly who the lucky girl is going to be, I'm tempted to set up an no-strings-attached (NSA), long-term (think 1-2X/wk over some period of months) "arrangement" with a younger woman. How will this aid or harm my success in finding the lucky girl for marriage, family, etc..?
Here are the primary pros and cons:
A) CON: The sugar baby (SB) would be selected primarily for her sex appeal as opposed to her social/intellectual skills. This being the case, she would likely be more physically attractive than the prospective wife. This could diminish my desire/ability to make something work with the theoretically less physically attractive prospective wife.
B) PRO: In that I would be "getting some", I would be in a better position to make good decisions with regard to selecting the prospective wife--the little head would not be doing all of the thinking.
C) CON: The SB relationship could make me "lazy". I might find it so easy, enjoyable and satisfying that the alternative might never look worth pursuing. Ultimately I think this is a hollow fear, but it is there nonetheless.
D) CON: I might get so accustomed to having an SB relationship as part of my life that I would continue it after launching into a wife/family scenario. This could damage my ability to make the latter work.
E) PRO: Physical intimacy--NSA or not--is great for my mental and physical health.
F) PRO: Inasmuch as it would be an "arrangement", it would not be complicated by the icky sticky business that comes up with a "normal" girlfriend--the discussions about where the relationship is going, etc... She would know going in that it was a mutually beneficial arrangement of long-ish but finite duration.
G) PRO: Hypothetically, it could aid the search for a wife to have an SB in place as opposed to a provisional/temporary girlfriend who might otherwise show up. The latter would be an obstacle to encountering more eligible prospects and would be more difficult to terminate than the SB.
Here are some of the relevant variables:
1) I just moved to a new city so it will take a while to get socially oriented. But I already had many good friends in the new city so that process is accelerated.
2) Though my presence here would suggest otherwise, my "hobbying" has been very limited--can count the incidents on the fingers of one hand.
3) Happily for me, women have tended to find me attractive. My difficulty in that regard has not been finding attractive OR intelligent OR sane women to get involved with, it has been finding women who are attractive AND intelligent AND sane...
4) As time has passed, I have found the women in my age group less and less attractive. So the "normative" path of getting involved with women in my social circles (and age group) has grown less and less appealing. Though I occasionally have guilty, "dirty old man" feelings about this, I think it just comes down to biological determinism--I'm biologically attracted to women in their child-bearing years. And from a practical point of view it only makes sense as marriage and family is one of the objectives.
5) In recent years I have been dating women 10-15 years younger than me. This has been a fun adventure on both sides of the equation. But I have yet to find one who has demonstrated the emotional and intellectual sophistication that makes me want to take her into all of the various corners of my life. I believe that this is a matter of my having set the bar high, and not endemic to women in that age group.
6) I am interested in a SB relationship as opposed to escorts for a few reasons. I like overnights at my home. I like to partake in other activities besides just sex with an NSA girlfriend--travel, sport, dinner, etc. Sex gets better as the two parties get to know one another. I don't warm to the idea that the other has had sex with several other men that day or week. I like having caring, physical relationships with and getting to know attractive young women--while keeping it NSA. I enjoy sharing some of the wisdom I have accumulated over the years with someone just starting out in life.
I'm especially interested to hear feedback from those of you who have had a sd/sb relationship and can share some of the 20/20 vision that comes from hindsight. And I'm also looking forward to LG's ever-penetrating insights.. 
LOL..!
"...vetting those hopeful candidates who will invariably fail your high standards...while you amuse yourself with the sugarbaby..."
LG, good work as usual! Upon re-reading my post I can see that my slightly holier-than-thou tone deserved a smack-down...
I think some of my sarcasm was lost in translation, "lucky girl" etc... Your response well-deserved nonetheless.
But perhaps there is also something here worthy of more serious consideration. And perhaps you, in your gently mocking tone, are revealing a bias as "conventional and predictable" as that of the middle-aged man "enslaved" to his "genetic imperative"--that of the mature woman who resents those mature men who feel a genetic imperative...? Perhaps the male readers will give me a more sympathetic ear...?
What is that thing worthy of more serious consideration? The question of whether there is an emotionally healthy place for me and/or in society for SB relationships. And I do think this is a psycho-sexual question.
In any case, I think your summary conclusion, "it won't matter", is spot on. But since it is something I've never done before and have some concerns about, I thought it was a question worth asking.
From a psycho-sexual point of view, I also find it interesting that it is at the point in my life that I am seriously contemplating family that the idea of an SB relationship appears attractive. It suggests is that I have found serial monogamy to be a barrier to marriage--a rather UN-conventional thought, to me at least.
As far as falling in love with the SB and her dumping me... Lol, you're just licking your chops waiting for that posting...! Rest assured. If it happens, I'll post it.
Interesting that you mentioned that you don't think you fall into the category of men "incapable of engaging on a deeper emotional level with women", and yet, when you talk about the type of women who turn you on, you mention socially, intellectually and physically - "emotionally" being notably absent!
For a long time, I also had the feeling that it might be hard to find everything I valued in one person, but unless you have identified characteristics which you know to me mutually exclusive, then there should be no obvious reason why not to keep looking.
Of course, for many people, polyamory is a sustainable lifestyle, as can be "tripod relationships", although, in most societies monogamy seems to be the norm, and so going that route would possibly give you access to a wider population.
Point taken Bostonguy57.
Guilty as charged. I did drag on there with far more detail than needed at the expense of the reader. Its a function of it being a new topic for me so I'm still getting my head around it.
Believe it or not, I'm usually in the "roll-with-it" school of thought on relationships...
...and grocery lists.