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Need a Friend? Rent One Online 134

Posted by samzenpus
from the you-get-what-you-pay-for dept.
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.
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Need a Friend? Rent One Online More

Need a Friend? Rent One Online

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  • Re:Ewww. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CastrTroy (595695) on Monday June 28 2010, @10:43AM (#32716488) Homepage
    I don't know, kind of creapy, but cheaper than a therapist (I'm assuming didn't look at pricing). And probably better for your social life than complaining to your actual friends all the time. I wonder how many people just use this thing as a sounding board to talk out their problems. I don't think anybody really needs to pay for friends on the internet. There's tons of forums and chat channels on just about any topic you can think of. However, most of these places, as in real life, people will start to ignore you if you complain too much. But I wonder if having a person who is paid to sit there and listen to your ranting would be helpful to people, and would accomplish a large amount of what therapists are paid to do.

  • Re:People laugh at stuff like this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Securityemo (1407943) on Monday June 28 2010, @10:54AM (#32716608) Journal
    If you have actually no interests that can be spun in a social manner, then I think you're either pretty rare or living in the wrong place. My grandpa is a ranking member of the OddFellows, and I think that most of the appeal of the "club" is the ability for older people in your situation to have a social life. Most members seems to be engineers, school teachers, middle-class businessmen, people like that.

  • Turing? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Crashspeeder (1468723) on Monday June 28 2010, @11:08AM (#32716784)
    Assuming this is strictly online (I can't be bothered with reading TFA) then it sounds like a very clever scam or an awesome Turing competition with unwitting participants.

  • Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Moraelin (679338) on Monday June 28 2010, @01:17PM (#32718616) Journal

    I read the suggestions of others here and all I can say is "Do you think we haven't tried and failed at these methods?" Either you're not as old as we are, or you're a damn-sight more social than you realize.

    There's a reason why males unmarried by 45 tend to die alone. They have better chances at the 6 pick lotto.

    Dude, I'm an aspie. I have about as much savvy and finesse for social occasions as my cat has for scuba diving.

    But what's being proposed here doesn't boil down to "go pick up a super-model in a bar", nor even something as radical as finding someone you can live with all day long for a marriage, but basically to "there must be other people at your age and with the same interests." Since you tried and failed, exactly what _was_ the problem? No, seriously, I'm curious.

    As I've been saying before, there are literally thousands of retired seniors in any town worth that name. Some hundreds to thousands of them profess being terminally lonely and badly in need to talk to someone. The OP even basically proposes to pay for someone to talk to.

    Exactly what _is_ the great impediment that prevents all this pool of people who badly want to talk to someone, from talking to each other?

    I mean, really. You want to talk to someone. They want to talk to someone. Some even desperately. I'm obviously missing something, because to me it sounds like the problem is its own solution. Surely if you're that badly in need of social interaction, you can tolerate another willing interlocutor for an hour or two even if their personality isn't exactly bride/groom class. What _is_ preventing it?

  • Re:Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BobMcD (601576) on Monday June 28 2010, @02:22PM (#32719836)

    Dude, I'm an aspie...I mean, really. You want to talk to someone. They want to talk to someone. Some even desperately. I'm obviously missing something, because to me it sounds like the problem is its own solution. Surely if you're that badly in need of social interaction, you can tolerate another willing interlocutor for an hour or two even if their personality isn't exactly bride/groom class. What _is_ preventing it?

    My understanding of the spectrum disorders, from learning to care for my son, is that you folks don't necessarily perceive and/or feel things the same way most other people do. If you'd agree with that, then chances are your confusion comes from your condition. They might likely fear the pain of rejection and/or disappointment MORE than they are suffering under the desperation of being alone. Because if they try and fail, they're alone and desperate and unable to fix it. Trying would remove their hope, should they fail.

    From what I understand, you'd be blessed to never have to grapple with these kinds of absurd doubts that the rest of us are ruled by...

    And if I've assumed incorrectly, I apologize in advance.

People are unconditionally guaranteed to be full of defects.