Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Renting friends.
Apparently a service is spreading which gives you a friend to go out with for a day (not for free of course). It started in America (surprise, surprise). Would you like to have such a job? Would you ask your clients to pay you directly or just to pick up your tabs? Would you ever consider asking for the service? Why are people having trouble finding friends by more traditional methods? Or is there some other reason why you think this has developed? What might be the possible risks?
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Friend rental is not a correct name for such service, I would call it a friend prostitution. The people who are willing to present themselves as friends for rent, do not have any dignity and self-respect. Why else would they take advantage from lonely the people who do not have friends. I disagree with what June Gaffney from Melbourn, Australia said, I do not think that it is right when lonely people can fullfill their needs with such service. His comment is based on his benevolent attitude to prostitution since it is legal in Australia. It is wrong since people who are lonely should rather find friends in pubs than buy them online. Company is importan for you during whole your life, friends are here for you even if you suffer from some life tragedy or some problem. These friends, bought online disapear when you loose money, but real a friend would stay and support you. Using such service may lead to problems with dealing with people, people who use such service may have problems to find friends normaly and may have problems using right words since they do not know how people react in different situations, they do not have people skills
ReplyDeleteHowever, numbers of users are showing pleasant facts. Only 285000 people wordwide present themselves as rental friends. This number is not that worrying, since there are almost 2 billion people using internet worldwide. Another great fact is that only 2600 use the service and rent a friend. Considering these numbers, I amsume that fortunatly this ridiculous idea is not common among people.
People should concentrate on finding people normaly. There are plenty ways how to find friends such as a dance class,a language class or a cooking class. I would like to add some: group hollydays or trips to different conventions for example art or music conventions. Finding companionship is essential part of human life and should not be replace by online service.
Mojmir
The founder of the website, Mr. Rosenbaum, says that rentafriend helps people to meet new people, however, I can’t see the advantage of doing so. Any person that intends to visit this website should think carefully about why he or she wants to meet someone new. If it happens to be the case of feeling lonely and searching for a friendship, then, in my opinion, it is a waste of time as these meetings cannot develop a true friendship if you know you are paying the person by an hour and the person’s job is to behave as a friend. That is not natural. As the psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert said, "There are so many more natural ways to meet people - through a dance class, church, cookery or language classes.” To be honest, I can’t imagine that I would use rentafriend if I felt lonely. I can tell by personal experience that finding a friend really works through a dance class, especially if it regularly participates in competitions. Such events tie the friendships together as dancers share stress, experience, feelings. I believe it similarly works in other possible ways that were outlined.
ReplyDeleteHowever, rentafriend is different. I can imagine that it can be an interesting thing to do if someone gets bored or wants to try something new, but not when looking for companion or real friendship or maybe something more, even if it is prohibited. Of course it might happen to be the case but I think it is very unlikely.
I was also very disappointed when I read about the charges for this service which I found unreasonably high comparing it to paying for a regular dance or language class, where there is an opportunity to find a real friend. However, people seem to lack time to do this. Everywhere you read “we live busy lives, we have no time” but when taking a careful think about it, I think most people get psychologically affected by what media say and if they really want to do something, then suddenly there is plenty of time. It only requires realization of it. This site of course takes advantage of the psychological effects on people and it a finds the friend for you so there is no effort necessary. In our generation everything simplifies to just one click on the internet, but in some cases the cost of it may become too high. Only one question appears then – are we willing to pay this cost?
After reading the article, I’ve spent some time thinking about the renting of a friend and friendship itself. To what I concluded is that in the world there is a major problem. Living in the world of technology, I would say, friendship loses its true value and people just talk to them through the internet rather than they went out with them. Therefore I think that these people become unable to communicate with friends in a natural way face-to-face because they rely so much on the internet.
ReplyDeleteBut as humans are very social beings, they naturally ask for some attention from the others. But oops, they suddenly can’t raise a new friendship because of their lost natural way of communicating among the friends. That’s why I think this renting of a friend business became very popular. It’s some kind of way with which some people compensate the inability and loneliness. True, it’s good to get to know as many people as possible, because then you can benefit from it, for example stay at their houses when you visit a place where he lives, but question is, where did the courage go? Why do these people prefer internet over the natural way like coming to a person and try to talk to him at first? Is that because of cowardliness? I think that it has something to do with it and so I assume that this kind of sites are for losers and people disconnected from real life as Jenny claimed, but I disagree that there are usually normal people as she told. I think that even though they seem normal they have some problems in socializing and that’s why they use these sites.
And there is one other thing when considering exploiting. I totally don’t see the point of paying for a friend, when you can talk to a random stranger anywhere in town. But that just shows again the cruel side of people who are aware of cowards or people not being able to socialize so well in society, aware of their misery and they know that these people are willing to pay for anything that would compensate their feeling. But I wouldn’t as I totally don’t agree with this business because it only makes people more coward than they already are.
I think that the whole idea of "renting" a friend completely defies friendship. A friend is a person that you have things in common, a person with whom you can talk and have fun with. A person who you can call on in your time of need and be certain that they will help you. Paying a few bucks to spend an afternoon with someone who doesn't care who you are, what you do and just does it for the money is just absurd. I'd even go as far to compare this rent-a-friend service to prostitution. I can't imagine why someone other than a person who has some kind of social problems would want to participate. Even if I were to be in an unfamiliar environment of a new city, I wouldn't rely on this kind of source to find new friends. I'd either go to a pub and strike conversation with people there, or for example take up a part time job somewhere and make friends that way. Making friends in the "old-fashioned" way helps us train our social skills.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, sites like Facebook also help destroy the "original" meaning of friends and friendship. People have hundreds and sometimes even more than a thousand "friends". However none of these people truly care about the persons feelings. There has been research done that states that a person is unable to maintain a real friendship level with more than a hundred people. Therefore it is in place to ask, what are these other people and why do some individuals choose to seek out these kinds of shallow "relationships"?
As Aristotle said "You can have everything in life, but if you have no true friend, it'll be no life at all". It seems that if this trend of false friendships continues, there will a lot less people living their life to the fullest.
I don’t think that renting a friend helps you to find a real friend. The rented friend is just an actor that tries to convince you of being a friend just by his acting. It’s a fake friendship. The rented person has no reason to care about you. He is doing it just because of money. In a real friendship you have some common experience and you care about each other, as Mark Vernon said:”Friendship must be based on gift. You'll do something for a friend happy to receive nothing in return - though, of course, you'll receive much.”
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand rentafriend can be different, as Jenny Tam said: “I'd definitely be open to transitioning from being a rented friend to a regular friend”. This means that it’s possible to find a real friend on this site, but you can also meet someone in work, school, during your hobbies or in pub and for free. I think that people using this service are, as Jenny said: ”I guess some people who use the site are losers and maybe disconnected from a regular social life” because they are willing to pay for something that normal people can do for free.
Some can say that they don’t have time to meet new people in an ordinary, old school way. And that this service saves them a lot of time and really helps them. I see that it’s very common to say these days that we live in a hurry, we don’t have time to socialize or that we are too busy to have a stable relationship or friendship with someone. I don’t think it’s true. My opinion is that we are just becoming more and more lazy thanks to the internet and other new technologies. It’s really easy to go out with friends or to do some hobbies and meet new friends this way instead of sitting in front of a computer screen and writing to some “friends” on Facebook you have never met.
I think this meeting with strange people is not friendship anymore. Chatting with someone who you see for the first time and you know it’s probably for the last time is like chatting on the internet. You can do almost what you want, because you feel free and you do not take enough responsibility for your actions. You know that even if you have done something wrong, it doesn’t matter. There are 285,000 friends available. That means 285,000 chances. You can go to this meeting and you can manage to tell lies all the time about everything in your life. You can say anything and there is a strong possibility that your rented friend would believe you. I do not see any problem doing this. But would you do this to a real friend?
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I think this imitation of friendship can be useful. Some people may have problems with finding friends. And this is a good alternative for them. Just one click on the internet and you have a new friend that you can talk to face to face. It’s different than just chatting on the internet. It’s more natural when you have to speak. Therefore, I think renting a friend might be useful at all.
Tomas Langer
Firstly, the whole idea of the project of renting a friend seems kind of wrong to me, even decadent in a way. What have we become over time when we go and log in on the internet, pay a registration fee, monthly fee and else fee just to go out with a random person who we don’t know and pretend it’s our friend? Are we suddenly so busy and preoccupied that we simply don’t have time to meet and make friends the old way?
ReplyDeleteJenny from the article said she had been new in town and this seemed like a good way to find someone likeable. I agree that this was a special occasion and that undoubtedly she had met people she would otherwise never have met. But again, she could go out with her roommate or a neighbor, or she could subscribe to an art or a dance course or go to a concert. I’m sure she would have found someone interesting to talk to.
As Jenny claims there had been many normal people who hired her and if it is true, then it makes me even sadder. I have to nothing but wonder why some people are willing to pay someone to spend their time with them. If I really wanted to exaggerate, I’d say it sounds very similar to paying courtesans for having fun. Do the people not trust themselves so much and have no self-confidence at all? With the success of the website it would be even more depressing if it was true.
However if it was the case like article says that people from big cities in modern times really don’t have time to look for friends then it would be a slightly more positive situation than the low-self-esteem-losers one.
Anyway in both cases I’d make one change that would perhaps make it an inch better. I’d make it all free because with money it just lacks the basic primary idea of friendship as such. As one of the people in the article said, friendship should work without any profit made.
I’m not a friend of dating websites in general, but I would probably accept “Rent a friend” on special occasions when for example people you know don’t have time and you don’t want to watch a movie or hang out alone. Otherwise I suggest people should try to stick to the old-fashioned way of making friends as it has always worked and we see it still can work also nowadays.
First thing what I want to say is, that it should not be called renting-friends. You can rent a person (what is generally bad) in a purpose of trying to make a friendship, but it is not you friend in the beginning, and obviously, he does not have to be your friend at the end also.
ReplyDeleteSo, which bad sides does this system have? To begin with the worst, which is, that in the end it does not have to bring the result which you will probably greet, including that you also have to pay for it. Another thing is, that you could absolutely miss the person of your ideate. If the rented person is not chatty, the situation could be for sure very weird. In some causes, there is also a chance (and not small), that this person is bit mentally ill. Recognizing of rented person in a place full of people is not an easy thing at all.
Not to forget to mention also the good sides of renting “friends”, it is advisable to said, that it is for some people the easiest, or maybe the only way how to get to know somebody. You can choose a person on the web page that you prefer, or in the case that you are rented, you have everything for free during the meeting (what is not bad at all :-)). The usability of this service is big. You can use it in the case of visiting new city, where you do not know anyone. Maybe in the time of dejection, you can also rent a friend to share your problems with.
To react to the comments, I like to say, that I agree with the comment, that it is another sign of this age, where everything is possible. What is absolutely true, is the truth which was mentioned in the Erik´s comment from Manchester: “A friend is someone you can confine in. Someone who gives and takes without the need for reciprocity. It´s a sad day what is given is fake friendship and what is taken is money.“ I am afraid of what did June Gaffney said in his comment, that in the future, majority of us will be living our lives on-line – and that this will become THE ONLY way to physically meet new people. What Michael posted: “Friends, real ones that is, give their time willingly at no cost and have so much more to offer“ and “Our children are facing a very empty future if we take away the development and true nature of friendships.“ are facts, which I believe are true.
Generally, I am not against doing this like a opportunity to meet someone new, but I hope I will never do something like that. There many different ways how to meet and make new friends, and they are more natural. Also the deepness of the friendship is not based only on sympathy but also on promptitude of the people and the amount of good/bad situations obsoleted together. To sum it up, I prefer real friendships more than fake ones.
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ReplyDelete@ Rado:
ReplyDeleteI do not totally agree with you statement, that renting friends do not help you find a real friend. What is true, it does not have to be in any case, but sometimes, for exemple if you are less talkative, this situation helps you to get to know new people. Yes, like you said, for some types of people (“loosers” – like you called them), it is probably the best (or the only one)possibily how to try to make a new relationship, however hard it could be.
It is definitly better to meet new people in ordinary “old school” way like you commented. Make a frindship based on common experience connected with sympathy, that is how it should be. The truth about not enough time fot meeting people is unfortunately veridical. It is mainly because of time, but lazyness is also very influencing factor. Let´s go out instead of chatting on facebook...
To rado:
ReplyDeleteI find your comment well-taken as you share some interesting ideas relevant to the topic. I agree with your statement “I don’t think that renting a friend helps you to find a real friend. “ But your supporting arguments are little bit truthless because i don’t think that rented friends are in any extend actors. Moreover all people on the site are aware of the payment in this business. The other fact is that not all of users are getting paid therefore not all of them are doing it because of money. About the part with losers, i admit that there has to be many of them on the site but also a lot of people is aware that they wouldn’t find a true mate there, they just seek for some company as for example Chris Barton, 31 from Las Vegas. And yes, the last part about Facebook is totally true as i can see myself that people are becoming victims of technology and too bad that this kind of sites only supports the victimization.