Life

Lonely? Here's the Solution

by Amy McCarthy

Sad and friendless? Live in Australia? Instead of just going out like a normal human being with normal social skills to meet friends in person or online, you could just pay people to come hang out with you with the new website Friends for Hire. For around $60 per hour, Friends For Hire will send out a brand new “friend” to accompany you to the bar, the movies, or maybe even a little Netflix marathon at home.

According to The Daily Dot, over 1,500 people have already signed up for the service, even though it’s not live just yet. Marketed as a product for the “terminally shy,” its users pay a weekly fee of $5 to be matched with others who have signed up to be someone’s friend for a price. The site does have one really important rule, though — no touching.

"It's definitely not a dating website. It's for people who are lonely, without the expectation that things will move beyond a platonic friendship,” said Josh Blundell, a co-creator of Friends For Hire. The site could be good for people who are moving to a new area or have trouble finding someone who shares their interests.

“Every member and friend is going to be different, depending on what their needs are,” he said. Members could be seeking company in a new city, gym buddies, “friends” to converse with them in a new language, people to confide in over the phone. There are, of course, plenty of in-person groups that allow people to share their interests. Meetup.com has allowed the web-savvy (and socially awkward) to connect with people for years.

Still, if over 1,500 people have signed up for the site, there’s obviously a demand for hourly rate friendships, and Friends For Hire isn’t the only place on the web that’s catering to this demand. According to WA Today, “In the US the most popular such site, RentAFriend, claims to have more than 500,000 friends available worldwide for everything from museum visits to skydiving. But in order to get in touch, users need to cough up a $US 24.95/month membership fee.”

If you’ve got the cash for a monthly fee, surely you’ve got a few bucks to enjoy real-life activities with people you don’t have to pay?