I wonder if repeat business is a problem. The article mentions a fake engagement, which isn't really a friend just a way to appease his parents. Paying to rent a friend could be useful for things like that. But for real friendship I think it would get depressing real fast
Well people do pay for cuddles and companionship. It's like when you aren't really that hungry you won't eat that slightly off 1 week old chicken but if you are hungry and nothing else is available it doesn't seem like such a bad idea.
Cuddles and I assume you mean the stronger version of companionship seem to be physically comforting.
Paying someone solely to behave like we have a trusting bond, that they care that I exist, is paying someone to lie to me. That's more invasive mentally than an hour of physical contact
I might pay someone to play tabletop board and card games with me one night a week. That's pretty much what I would do with actual friends anyway.
And if I were paid to do the same, I'd think that's a pretty good gig--unless the friendship contract stipulated a certain frequency of letting the boss win, of course.
I don't need much of a trusting bond. Just eat my snacks, drink my drinks, laugh at the 10% of my jokes that actually deserve it, and take your weekly card-table curbstomping without much more than a token amount of complaints.
If I were single, I might also hire a wingman or blocker to back me up at the local meet market venues.
IDK, I suspect half the time, my real friends and I are pretending to like each other, to maintain polite relationships for the other half of the time that we actually do enjoy each other.
What I mean is, nobody actually wants, needs, or should have 100% pure honesty all the time. Does it matter if the 3.5 days out of 7 that someone puts up with my cantankerous nature is to have access to my money or the other 3.5 days that I'm shaved and showered and generally pleasant?
Yeah I feel like there were a few dark times in my life when I would have definitely paid for this service; paying someone to go out and have fun with you certainly beats sitting in your apartment drinking alone and feeling bad.
