What if You Could Rent a Girlfriend?
I know this sounds crazy, but it is possible!
I love Japan and I am very curious to get to know the country. To be honest, I intend to spend my next vacation there. And as a good connoisseur of Japanese culture, I love sushi, sake, anime, and manga — But what I love most about them is their creativity in coming up with incredible ideas and making them real. Did you know that in Japan you can rent a girlfriend for a day?
Well, not just a girlfriend, you can hire someone to do all sorts of jobs you want — from hiring someone to pretend to be your parents or siblings to hiring someone to go with you to a prom and even hiring a rental girlfriend to you don’t feel alone.
Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? So it is. But all this has a much greater meaning — As everyone knows, Japan is one of the countries with the highest suicide rate in the world, and the Japanese government needed to think of something quick and practical to try to reduce the cases of these incidents in the country.
When doing some studies, they discovered that most of the causes of suicides in the country were due to the lack of real social interaction between people and excessive work. And thinking of a way to try to improve this, in 1990 the first “rent a person” services appeared.
Today it is common for you to go to Tokyo and find several companies that offer this type of service with really qualified employees that people can hire for certain occasions. Meaning, if you are feeling lonely or need a companion, you can simply hire some friends, family, boyfriend/girlfriend, etc.
The crazy thing is that you pay 8,000 Yen for the rental service and you can customize the rented person however you want. Like this? Well, you give the characteristics you are looking for and the company that provides the rental service will select someone who fits the profile you asked for. You can also ask the rented partner to change temperament, appearance, behavior, and tastes — Everything to be the way you like it.
Honestly, I find this sad. It’s like putting together a Lego game but in real life. But on the other hand, it also works as an escape valve to forget loneliness in a country where there is little social interaction.
What is it like to rent a girlfriend in Japan?
In the West, it’s very common to use apps like Tinder and Bumble to find people who know how to relate to them. But in Japan, things are further ahead of our time. And what may seem strange to us, in Japan this has become something normal — Like it or not, this is a great way to avoid loneliness. This is the kind of service that saves people from that bad feeling of being alone.
I think that just writing is not enough for us to understand what it’s like to rent a girlfriend in Japan, so searching YouTube, I found a video by YouTuber Shihomi where he hires a fictional girlfriend and shows us the reality of who hires these types of services, see below:
It is worth remembering that there are also rules regarding rent. For example, the contact between the client and the rented person is professional only. You cannot contact your rental girlfriend after the service. These girlfriends do not offer any kind of sexual services. And she has no right to accept expensive gifts from her clients.
It’s a trade where you exchange your money for an hour of conversation with someone. And it may even seem that this does not work, but it is an industry that earns more and more every year.
Final Thoughts
With the growing rise of this type of service in Japan, other countries have also started to offer people rental services. For example, South Korea also joined this trend and today it is common for you to rent guests for weddings there.
And if you think that the United States is out of this, you are wrong. Know that in 2009, a man named Scott Rosenbaum decided to set up his friend rental agency. The service even has a subscription system, and you can find friends for rent based on their local areas.
I confess that I’m not a big fan of the idea of hiring a person and setting them up according to my tastes. But at the same time, I understand that this is a necessary service for those who have little or no real social interaction during the day — It’s an effective way to escape loneliness and not feel alone.
Thanks for reading. Have a great day!
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