"Making friends has
never been easier"
Ever been the new kid on the block? We all know it can take a while to meet new people sometimes. Especially when you
move somewhere knowing absolutely no one. But eventually by random chance we meet someone at our new school, job, or local shopping market, and bam! The wait is over, and before you know it you’ve built yourself a brand new circle of friends. But what if you could eliminate the wait period and meet someone as soon as you make the big move? That would certainly ease the transition. Thanks to websites such as RentAFriend.com, you can rent-a-friend for a monthly or annual fee, not including the hourly rate for any friends you may meet. That’s right! Not only can you rent houses, cars, and movies, but now you can rent friends too. What used to take socialization skills and a number of shared experiences to build, you can now buy at the click of a button. That’s capitalism for you.
RentAFriend.com is a site that provides people with the opportunity to rent local friends from all over the world. While the website makes it abundantly clear that RentAFriend only offers platonic friendships and does not serve as a dating website or escort service, users can rent friends for a multitude of platonic reasons, whether it’s to learn a new skill from their new found “friend”, have a personal tour guide to show them around an unfamiliar town, or just to simply have someone to hang out with. Need some personal advice? Use RentAFriend. Or perhaps you’re in need of a tutor. Fear not, RentAFriend can save the day. They even list offerings for needs as random as prom dates and psychic buddies.
While the idea of friend rental is still a relatively new subject to the American population, the RentAFriend website is not the first of it’s kind. In recent years, a wide number of “rent a friend” companies have been popularized in Japanese culture. According to company research, family structure is a very big part of Japanese society, so friend rental services will offer fill in family members to substitute for anything from absent parents to stand in activity partners. This may be a somewhat strange concept for the American psyche, yet in Japan it’s an amiable solution for those looking to keep their social status in tact. Thus in response to the lack of a “friend market” in the United States, the creator of the site, Scott Rosenbaum, decided to launch Rent-a-friend.com out of Stewartsville, New Jersey in October 2009.
I decided to peruse the website for myself after stumbling across an advertisement during a night of late night web surfing. When you reach the home page of the site it prompts you to enter your zip code into a friend finder database in order to see potential friends. This is a great feature because it allows you to view the profiles of all the potential “friends” in any location you wish, while other “rent a friend” sites may ask you to sign up before viewing members. Upon entering my own zip code into the friend finder database a number of local Richmonders instantly appeared on my monitor, with ages ranging from 22-45. These friends for hire advertised a number of activities for which they were available including poetry, sight seeing, video games, business events, personal advice, pet sitters, and even running errands! (The latter of which almost tempted me to join the site). However if you wish to go further and message someone you must sign up for the site.
As interesting a concept as this may be, one can’t help but wonder if these “friend market” websites are a sign that we’re connecting with each other or disconnecting with one another? It’s a known fact that friendships are vital to a happy life, but is it possible to buy real friendship? I think we all know the answer to that. But the site does have it’s good points. For the lonely new kid on the block or the bored executive with some downtime on his/her business trip it could be quite useful to rent your very own tour guide. Only time will tell if this phenomenon will catch on in America as it has in Japan.
Interested in friend rental? Visit http://www.rentafriend.com/ today to check out local friends in the Richmond area!
