Need a Friend? Rent One Online 134
crimeandpunishment writes "Housewives, college students, and others are working for a website that charges users an hourly rate for their companionship. No, it's not an escort service — at least it's not one 'with benefits.' It's a site called rentafriend.com, that's trying to carve out a niche in the 'everything's available online' business world. The seven-month-old site, patterned after hugely successful sites in Asia, has nearly 2,000 members who pay either a monthly or yearly fee to check out the pictures and profiles of more than 160,000 potential pals." I thought Craigslist had already cornered the market on renting a friend for an hour or two.
Another one ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or you could simply add a bunch of random people of Facebook and see how many accept your friend request.
This is just beyond lame. (Score:3, Insightful)
People laugh at stuff like this (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:People laugh at stuff like this (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Travel (Score:3, Insightful)
o it would be worth $30-$40 for someone to show you around for a couple of hours.
In vegas, I'm told the cab drivers perform this function. Seriously.
And, on the internet, theres a wiki for everything:
http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page [wikitravel.org]
Re:This is just beyond lame. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm no social butterfly, but when I'm alone out of town I have no problem going to a bar and finding random people to talk to. It's not hard, people. Beer helps.
Congratulations.
You can turn in your geek card at the door.
BTW - if you haven't figured it out yet, not everyone feels comfortable talking to random strangers, and some of us are unable to pour enough booze into our system to get rid of our inhibitions before we pass out.
Re:People laugh at stuff like this (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:People laugh at stuff like this (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, there's always the local LUG. Might be worth a shot for some people -- at least you've got one interest in common.
Lots of hobby groups exist and meet regularly. RC Planes, Gaming clubs, S&M enthusiasts... If you've got an interest, I guarantee there's a club for it *somewhere*.
Makes perfect sense if you remember why u pay (Score:3, Insightful)
Like in the case of the other by-the-hour service, you don't pay people to be friends with you, you pay them to go away. Real friendships are a lot of work that not everyone is willing to invest in every instance. Imagine that you have a family and a busy job, but you are away on a business function for two weeks. Wouldn't you want someone to show you around town without having to talk about work or promising to call later? I know most slashdot readers are not in this position, but wouldn't you want to earn enough pocket money to buy a new laptop while spending time with successful professionals that you seek to emulate?
Not allowed to drink beer (Score:1, Insightful)
My mother doesn't permit me to drink beer because it's against her freaking religion, and I have to do whatever my mother says (even though I'm in my late 30's! Please kill me.) It doesn't matter anyway because bars are "bad" and people who go to bars are "evil, dirty people".
Long story short, I have no way to meet people because all the things people do to meet people are somehow "bad" by her standards, so I never learned how.
I'm going to go back to my corner and wait for death to come.
Re:Not allowed to drink beer (Score:4, Insightful)
I originally moderated you up, but I think it's important to say: Move out! Get a job (I know, not always easy, especially now), and move out on your own. Your personal wellbeing and self esteem will likely be much improved. You don't need to go out and live a life of debauchery, but you can sit there a few times a year and say, "you know, I think I'll have beer|scotch|brownies".
The exception would be if you're living the life of Bertie Wooster, and have to behave in order to get a massive inheritance. In that case... who knows. =) I'm genuinely curious why you feel you have to follow your mother's restrictive lifestyle. Part of being a mature adult is respecting that not everyone feels the same way you do.
On the flip side, if you've never had booze or been to a bar, you may find that you don't enjoy them when you DO try it. There's no harm in that -- but then you'll avoid them by choice, not because you feel you are kept from them by someone else.
Re:Counselling (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, exactly, and per the application, it also includes helper, gofer, and all around dogsbody -- pretty much anything that requires a warm body. I can see this as very useful for short-term employment for specialties of every sort, sometimes building to long-term employment. Frex, one "friend" could be the shopper for a dozen housebound people, make some money at it, and make the housebounds' lives easier (and more interesting, as they could see new faces whenever they wished).
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Basically it just means being completely oblivious to any body language clues or cues, much in the same someone colour-blind might not even be aware that someone dyed their hair blue. It's a mixed blessing. On one hand it is the obvious handicap, on the other hand for example I see some people fall for the most blatantly bogus sales pitches and can only assume that some body signal was giving them confidence there.
It doesn't really mean anything else, though. You can still be an aspie extrovert (oy vey) or introvert (count your blessings) for example.
It _does_ have a very high co-morbidity rate with, well, practically any other mental condition or syndrome in the DSM. So someone could be aspie + ADHD, another one could be aspie + sociopath, yet another aspie + OCPD (seems a popular combination, actually), and so on. So YMMV and conclusions from observing one may not match another one, since you may be observing the other part actually, rather than the aspie part.
It does lead to perceiving stuff differently, in as much as missing you're missing a whole information channel from the input. Which can lead to some wildly inadequate remarks at times. But otherwise basically, if you prick us, we still bleed, same as anyone else. Being told to fuck off still hurts like it hurts anyone else, for example. And expecting rejection is, far as I can tell, still expecting rejection. I'm certainly not immune to that. Just not being able to tell when I said something that offended, didn't mean I didn't notice some kids avoided me in school, for example. If anything, for a long while it just made it seem even more unfair for lack of a logical reason why they're avoiding me or trying to basically chase me off.
But the point I was getting at was more like "don't tell _me_ I don't know about problems with finding an audience."
Though the flip side is that even as an aspie you _can_ learn to function adequately in society by, basically, just learning what you're expected to do and what not to do. And some honest introspection helps too. E.g., one thing I had to learn the hard way was that people like it when you agree with them. ELIZA mode ftw. E.g., that a conversation is not a monologue. People want their turn to be listened to. E.g., that when someone complains about some problem, they want sympathy, not a logical solution. (Obviously I'm ignoring that one for the purpose and scope of this thread.) E.g., what makes people laugh. (Laughter I do 'sense'.) Etc.
Basically if even I can learn when to offer a shoulder to cry on, I find it hard to believe that someone else -- regardless of age -- would be totally and utterly incapable of holding a conversation with anyone else. I honestly have a problem imagining a room full of people who are desperate enough to even try to chat up the cashier, yet are incapable of talking to each other. Surely you can find someone there who you can tolerate to listen to about her children or such, for a limited time. Maybe it's my limited imagination, though.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, my phrasing obviously sucked, and it does create the semantic difference you correctly identified. But basically I don't expect failure every single time, or, you know, I wouldn't even try anything ever. But I think everyone is aware that there is the possibility of failure, and specificially the possibility of rejection, and one may have various degrees of anxiety or fight-or-flight reaction or whatever apropriate. I can't speak for all aspies, of course, but I've certainly been affraid that something could go wrong before. It doesn't look to me like it comes with some inherent immunity to fear.