![]() ![]() This is where RentAFriend diverges from standard expectations of a platonic relationship and veers closer to a dating app or site. ![]() They can see a list of their preferred activities and of physical traits, including height, eye and hair color, and body type. Members can peruse the profiles of local friends, check out their pictures, and read their bios. RentAFriend is a bare-bones site built to do one thing: show paying customers a list of potential rentable friends so they can get in contact as quickly as possible. When entrepreneur Scott Rosenbaum stumbled across its existence in an article, he thought, “If people in Japan were interested in hiring rentable parents, would people in the US be interested in hiring rentable friends?” Enter RentAFriend. The size of this industry and its consumer appeal didn’t go unnoticed here. Rental services of this kind have lasted for more than two decades in Japan, and some employ robust full-time staffs managing thousands of freelance rentable “actors.” The platonic companionship market is more established in Japan, where companies like Family Romance and Client Partners offer customers the chance to rent professionals to stand in as friends, partners, or even parents for special events, sessions of catharsis, or just an afternoon visit. Platonic companionship, on the other hand, has yet to enter mainstream American consideration as a product that can be bought or sold. (You can still use Craigslist to search for “activity partners,” which, in theory, seems to emphasize the platonic.) Webcam services such as Chatroulette continue to offer free or paid chances to interact virtually one on one with people across the world, but for many American consumers, their reputations are largely linked to pornography. ![]() Craigslist shut down its personals section last spring after passage of legislation aimed at ending sex trafficking that would find websites hosting prostitution ads liable. There’s an array of technology specifically aimed at helping you make friends, including Bumble BFF, a sociable spinoff of the dating app, and Hey Vina, which matches like-minded women.Īnd if that all fails, you can also search for friends online and rent them.Īn internet marketplace trading people’s time and attention for cash isn’t new. If that includes human contact, don’t worry, you can find that too. If you know what you’re looking for online - and, with the increasingly spooky accuracy of algorithms, even if you aren’t sure - you can find it. It was a perfectly pleasant series of events that I’d calculated to last 180 minutes, because my friend was a stranger I found online and I was paying for the company by the hour. My brother was worried about what seemed to me an ideal Saturday afternoon: My friend and I were taking in a movie, walking through some of New York City’s loveliest neighborhoods, and enjoying cactus tacos at a food hall. I assured him that I’d only move through public spaces, that my whereabouts would be well-documented, and that I would text him when it was over. In an uncharacteristic display of concern, my brother had called to tell me to be safe. ![]()
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