New site lets you rent a friend for $10/hour
Body odour. Swastika tattoo. A propensity to watch Two and a Half Men.
Crude depictions, yes, but all of these could be viable reasons you don’t have friends.
Yet, if you’re looking and have the cash – $10 an hour, that is – don’t fret. Introducing: RentAFriend.com.
I happened to stumble across this latest social networking attempt on the Web this week, catching an article highlighting RentAFriend.com’s founder in the Daily Telegraph.
The site, as you might have extrapolated, is just as its name suggests: it’s an eHarmony/Lavalife/Plenty of Fish-type domain for everything except dating and sex. Just … friendship.
“No one was offering friendship,” said Scott Rosenbaum, the site’s U.S. founder, telling the Daily Telegraph he wants his network to “go a step back” from other romance-inspired sites to create something “strictly platonic.”
Of course, RentAFriend.com isn’t quite like the aforementioned sites, in that you actually have to pay to interact with any people you might meet. This isn’t to say you don’t pay on other sites. On eHarmony, for example, you’ll dole out as much as $60/month to join but, after that, your interactions with other site members are at your own discretion.
With RentAFriend, you pay a fee (about $25/month) to join, but after that, you’re supposed to literally rent that person at an hourly wage. Ten bucks is the prescribed rate, though as the site says, some members’ fees “are negotiable.”
Now, we’ll leave it up to you to decide whether a) this is a site designed to facilitate meaningful, lasting, platonic friendships, or b) it’s really just a kind of friend-prostitute hook-up that you can access for $10/hour.
In any case, I highly recommend you type in your postal code (RentAFriend serves Canada, too) just to see what gems the site suggests you hire for an hourly friend date.
Personally, I’m eligible to meet up with Theodore, a 55-year-old bespectacled beardo from Toronto who likes comedy and “can easily make people laugh.” He’s available for such activities as swimming, shopping, hanging out or giving personal advice.
Seriously, this is a legitimate website. No, really.
By Jason Buckland, MSN Money
Posted by: Dean Usher | Jul 27, 2021 3:12:07 PM
I think that this is a great idea. I will visit this site and maybe I will actually rent a friend.
Posted by: Dean Usher | Jul 27, 2021 3:14:42 PM
I think that this is a great idea. I will actually use this site and maybe i will actually rent a friend because i need all the friends i can get lol.
Posted by: Maria Vandermoth | Jul 30, 2021 3:24:56 PM
Another reason why people spend most of their times on computers..You can find a FREE friend OFF the computer, you know. Instead of the computer being our pimp for friends.