19 minute read

Friendr

Ian MacAllen

The first orientation video promises that the Friendr app can pro vide a fulfilling experience for both the client and the associate. I was not looking for a fulfilling experience. I just needed the money.

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The second orientation video warns against specific behaviors for associates: no touching, no sexual contact, and absolutely no circum venting the app when arranging a Friend Encounter The video consists of colorful animations reducing these rules into childish cartoons nar rated by a helpful dog. The dog warns of the dangers of making friends outside of the app. He implies people are scary, and the app is a safer alternative.

The third orientation video offers helpful suggestions, like adopt ing an alternative name to use with clients. I chose the name Leonard. I think Len and Lenny are nice nicknames, although the Friendr app warns against encouraging clients to refer to associates by anything oth er than their formal professional name so as to deter any undo familiar ities. We are, the final video reminds us, professional friends. None of the orientation videos provide advice on suppressing your human emo tions. ***

Begin by downloading the Friendr app to your device. Create a user account Pick a user account name that is easy to remember. After logging in, fill in the appropriate profile information by answering a se ries of questions about yourself. The first of these questions are biographical—age, location, aller gies. Then the app constructs a profile to match associate friends with clients who are friendless. The app always refers to clients as “friend less” rather than “lonely” or “a person without friends” to avoid negative connotations. The later profile questions are more complicated than the biographical ones. They ask about personality and interests. As I filled out my profile, the questions about my current occupa tion were the most challenging. The software has a limited menu to se lect from There is no option for “professional friend ” I tried selecting “freelancer,” since technically all Friendr associates are freelance em ployees without any claim to benefits or labor protections. These points are reiterated by the friendly-looking cartoon dog both in the orienta tion videos and on their website. Litigation is pending The occupation menu, though, has no option for “accepts money for platonic friendships.” I backtracked through the menus looking for an appropriate profession to indicate my experience levels since each of my three career tracks has since been automated. I checked off “lawyer.” After uploading a photo, the Friendr profile is complete. Associates are matched to a compatible client and arrangements for an Encounter are set within the app. Associates are reminded they should never meet a client without arranging the meeting through the app, both to ensure proper billing and for the associate’s own safety ***

Life had grown pretty grim since the layoffs. A decade ago, I had been on track at a big-law job. I had survived both recessions and grown complacent The firm had landed a number of high-profile tech firms, and we felt certain these clients would carry us into the next century with billable hours. We had a heavy focus on insurance liability of au tomated machines, a seemingly endless market for lawsuits against the surge of automated vehicles, doctors, accountants, financial advisors, retail clerks, and machines in nearly every other industry. We weren’t wrong. Plenty of lawsuits ensued. We became the go-to firm for the emerging automated technology companies. The thing to know about technology companies is that they know a lot about technology. It only took a few months of our six-figure billings for those nerds to focus on cutting their legal fees through automation. We never expected the bots to come for our jobs, but two years after our first successful defense of a maiming robotic doctor, I was laid off.

My next move took me to the public defender’s office. The auto mation revolution hadn’t created a shortage of criminals, and plenty

MacAllen 29 of them required publicly funded legal advice. Then the city inevita bly outsourced those jobs to computers, and I reverted to my old high school job delivering pizzas for Tony. Tony’s Pizzeria on Graham Avenue was a neighborhood staple, but a few months after I started, he replaced me with a pizza delivery drone I collected unemployment, but I knew things were going badly when my caseworker was replaced with an al gorithm. The following week I signed up to become an associate friend on Friendr.

***

I didn’t receive any Encounter requests the first day. Although Friendr promised no limit to how much I could earn, as a freelancer, I also wasn’t guaranteed any income. I worried tweaking my account to appear more desirable was a dishonest misrepresentation of the poten tial friendship I could offer, but I needed the money I read up on key words and optimization techniques to improve my chances of matching with a client until, finally, Bert pinged me.

I looked over Bert’s profile. He seemed mostly normal with a strong passion for seltzer water. Feigning interest in someone’s hobbies can be tedious for associates, the Friendr tutorials had warned. But I was des perate. I accepted his Encounter request and set about studying up on seltzer water

***

The doorman at Bert’s building looked at me as though annoyed I was interrupting his day. Lucky him, to have a job, I thought. Bots still couldn’t replace the warm and cozy feeling of a real, live human opening and closing the door. The doorman called up to Bert’s apartment and pointed me toward the elevator bank.

Bert stood in the doorway waiting for me when the elevator opened. “Hi, Leonard!” he said, waving at me with far too much enthusiasm for me to feel comfortable

“You must be Bert?”

“Of course! You look exactly like your profile photos. I’m sure we’re going to be great friends. Come on in, but please, take your shoes off,” he said, waving me into his apartment with an unnerving excitement. I hadn’t expected such a high-energy client, but I knew I had to recipro cate. I wanted Bert to like me, and not just because I wanted him to rate 30 MacAlle my friendship a five-star experience

“Great place you have here,” I said. His apartment overlooked the park

“Can I get you something to drink?” Bert asked as he led me into the main living room.

“I’d love a seltzer,” I said, remembering my training video: “Act like a gracious guest when a client is hosting. Keep Friend Encounters posi tive ”

Bert held two glasses of seltzer. He was standing uncomfortably close to me He offered me one and then sipped the other. I waited for him to say something.

“This is good seltzer,” I said eventually.

“I make it myself. Do you want to see?”

“Yes,” I said, remembering the mantra: “Say yes.”

Bert eagerly showed off his collection of vintage soda bottles. He had them arranged in his kitchen by style. To me they were all just glass jars in various shades of blue and green

“I’ve always been fascinated with carbonated beverages,” Bert ex plained as he picked up a greenish-tinted one He shot another glass of soda. “The cartridges I special order.”

As he moved through the various eras of his soda collection, Bert revealed the origin of his wealth. He had invented the Sel-Zero, the ze ro-calorie seltzer water machine. I didn’t want to point out that based on my research, all seltzer water was zero calorie. There was nothing terribly revolutionary about his product, but the real magic of his suc cess came with selling pre-packaged water for the machine to carbonate. Customers would place the sealed packs of water in the machine, and the machine would squeeze out fresh, portable carbonated water.

“This bottle is the very first seltzer bottle I ever owned. It belonged to my grandparents. They were from Connecticut and often hosted cocktail parties.” He held up a delicate bottle with a cross-stitched pat tern etched in the glass and a silver spigot on top.

“That is kind of amazing,” I said, even believing it myself, just a little bit. ***

I was on my way home from the Encounter when a Friendr no-

MacAllen 31 tification popped up: “Rate your Encounter!” the app demanded with options for one through five stars I didn’t have much friend experience to go by, but my Encounter with Bert had transpired without serious threat to my health or safety. I rated him five stars. A few seconds later the app pinged me back; Bert had also rated me five stars. Those five stars were all I needed to send my profile to the top of the search results. By late that evening my inbox had been filled with Encounter requests My friendship career had finally taken off.

***

By the end of the week I had booked a dozen more Encounters There was Patrick, the kind old man who lived alone on the Upper East Side and mostly wanted someone other than his cat to talk to. There were Tina and Jim who wanted a third wheel for dinner-and-movie dates because they were obviously headed toward divorce. I attended a concert with Otto, visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Simon, practiced yoga with Henry, joined Michelle for her work happy hour, spent a day with Stanley on Long Island. Most of my Encounters ended with five-star ratings. The people loved me, in a strictly platonic way. The one four-star rating blemishing my profile was, I suspect, left by Tina and Jim, who were too busy making each other unhappy to notice the joy I had brought them.

I entered a regular routine. In the mornings, I scheduled some kind of physical activity: yoga, running, tennis, or something similar with the more athletically inclined clients, followed by lunch. The client always paid for incidentals. In the afternoons, I visited with low-impact clients like Patrick, who filled me in on his cat’s activities. In the evenings, I took up with the night owls. Weekends were especially busy, but at least during these busier hours, Friendr charged a premium. The Swell pric ing intended to provide an extra incentive for associates willing to fill our client’s friend needs.

***

Clients adored me and I worked hard to please them. They reward ed me with five-star ratings, and higher rankings translated to premium fees. My own lifestyle lent itself to fulfilling their whims. I had no girl friend or boyfriend for years, no children or dependents, and didn’t even have a dog or cat to worry about. I was fully devoted to earning Friend 32 MacAlle fees.

Clients lavished me with gifts—not just meals and tickets to shows, but real, tangible items like new clothing and the latest gadgets and giz mos. My clients were the winners of the automation economy, their wealth securely in place before the end of labor. Most lived the life of leisure from accumulated capital now managed by artificially intelligent portfolio managers. Automation had been hard to accept for the rest of us. True to the technocrats’ brightest dreams, abject poverty had been eliminated No body had to go hungry The farm bots produced more than enough food and construction robots built enough housing. But also gone was the ability to ascend beyond subsistence. At last my first deposit from Frien dr arrived. The nominal fees amounted to the most money I had earned since before the automation age ***

Kevin wanted help meeting women. I preferred avoiding these En counters because a negative outcome was far more likely than a positive one, but I was feeling greedy. Kevin had sent an Encounter request late Friday afternoon and the Swell pricing had a three times multiplier not unusual for a Friday night when Friends were in demand and I thought for sure it would be enough to snag the BFF badge The Friendr badges were a next level of quality control and could help Friends earn even higher fees.

I met Kevin outside his apartment. “My buddy tells me this place is a total meat market,” Kevin said. I wanted to ask Kevin why his buddy hadn’t joined him here instead of me, but I was already spending the money I would earn from the Encounter. I needed to stroke Kevin’s ego. I could tell from outside the bar it was the sort of place that played non stop Battle Bots on giant screens a terrible venue to try and meet wom en.

Kevin and I sat at the bar with beers. Between Battle Bot matches, he rambled on about the terrible relationship he had recently ended. All the problems had been the fault of his partner. As a friend for hire, I had sat through many worse stories, but Kevin wasn’t helping himself with the women at the bar. I hesitated to tell him potential partners didn’t want to hear about his ex-girlfriend.

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“Maybe lead in more positively, about yourself,” I suggested, though he didn’t take the hint. Another beer, and another attempt at flirting, and I had to be more direct: “Don’t jump right in about Barbara. Women don’t want to hear about her.”

I could tell our Friend Encounter wasn’t going well when he turned to the bots battling on the screen. He was caught up in a ferocious match when Alice spotted me from across the bar. She smiled I smiled back, her bright red hair catching my eye, but then remembered why I was in the bar. I wasn’t here to flirt with beautiful redheads; I needed results for Kevin. It didn’t matter, though, because Alice crossed the room to where we were sitting.

“I’m Alice, and this is my friend Abigail,” she said. Abigail extend ed a gangly arm offering her hand.

“Leonard. A pleasure to meet you both.” I shook both their hands before remembering Kevin. “And, uh, this is my friend, Kevin.” I slapped Kevin on the shoulder to get his attention away from the bots. “Kevin, this is Alice and Abigail.”

I’m not sure if it was my pep talk or if Abigail had somehow en chanted Kevin enough for him to behave, but he didn’t talk about Bar bara once. The four of us had another round of drinks before Kevin sug gested, all on his own, that we have dinner. He managed to get through the meal without seeming like the sad sack I had met that afternoon. When we left the restaurant, Alice and I naturally lingered as Kev in and Abigail meandered up the street, continuing their flirtation. “We had a great time tonight,” Alice said with a giddy smile. I could hear Kevin asking Abigail to have another night out.

“So what would you think about having a drink sometime?” I said to Alice.

“I doubt that would be appropriate,” she said, the smile gone. “You seemed to be having a good time, I thought maybe ” “I’m sorry, but I can’t I thought you understood,” she said, her tone now businesslike.

Just then a cab pulled up and Abigail called over: “Alice, this is us!” “Maybe I’ll see you again?” Alice smiled, touched my hand briefly, and then climbed into the cab. I wondered what I had done wrong.

“Can you believe it, Len? She and I are going out again next Tues day. You really pulled through for me, buddy,” Kevin said. “That sounds great,” I said with positive enthusiasm as I watched the cab drive away.

Bert booked a full afternoon with me. I had seen him a few times, but our Encounters had tapered off in recent weeks. I felt I owed him a few hours since his five-star rating had launched my Friend career. When I arrived at his apartment, the first thing I noticed was that it ap peared emptier than usual. The couch and television screen were gone The only thing in the room was his collection of seltzer bottles. “What’s the matter, Bert?” I asked. He was visibly sad.

“I’ve got to sell the collection ”

“The seltzer bottles? But why?”

“I’m bankrupt.”

“But I thought you had sold millions of Sel-Zero water machines.” “Pre-sold. Turns out the Sel-Zero water packets don’t need an ex pensive machine to squeeze out carbonated water Customers have just been squeezing seltzer water from the packets by hand.” He held up a Sel-Zero bag for me to hold, clipped off the tube on the end, and poured a glass of seltzer. “You see the problem? No ma chine.”

“Can’t you just sell the bags of seltzer?”

“Sure, but my business partner invented the bag. He doesn’t need me to sell them so I’ve run out of money.”

“I’m sure you’ll find another way,” I said, remembering Friendr’s recommendation to always remain supportive of clients. “Listen, I wanted to say goodbye You’ve been such a good friend to me. I’ll be honest with you I’m spending the last of my liquid assets on this appointment.”

“I’m honored, really, that you would spend the last of your money on me. You know, you were my first Friendr client? I’ll always remember that about you.”

“I was thinking maybe we could be friends—outside of the app.”

“Unfortunately, Bert, Friendr’s terms of service prohibit fraterniz ing outside of the app’s arranged Encounters. It is to protect both of us.

It’s so that we can both forget about the arrangement, financially, be tween you and me.”

“The problem is I can’t really afford to pay for friendship any more on account of owing so much money.”

“I know. I’m pretty torn up about this, too.”

“Maybe we could just go out for an imitation coffee sometime. We wouldn’t even have to talk. We could just sit at the same Melville Cafe and drink our imitation coffee and not talk to each other.”

“I supposed that wouldn’t technically violate the terms of service, if we didn’t speak. I’m just not sure if that is how friendship is supposed to work ”

“Just pick a place and a time, and I’ll be there.”

I hugged Bert goodbye. Since we were never going to see each other again and there was nothing sexual about a hug, I figured we could bend the rules this once Goodbye, friend, I wanted to say, but he wasn’t. He was just a client.

***

My Friendr score continued to increase. My efforts with Kevin had earned me the BFF Badge, and suddenly I was a favorite among single men looking for help finding a lover. I had no special bag of tricks. I felt certain they would find me out as a fraud soon enough, but the Swell fees were higher, and I accepted the challenge

When we were successful, the men believed I had been their lucky charm and would leave glowing reviews of my services If we failed, the men blamed the women, or they blamed the weather, or the bar, or sometimes they really just wanted someone to watch Bot Ball or Robot Hockey with. They never blamed me, and usually we would try again until they found a woman or man desperate enough to love them back. ***

Kevin booked another appointment. “Abigail keeps asking about you so I told her we could go to dinner,” he said in the message. The Swell multiplier was four, so I figured for that kind of money I would have to say yes.

I met Kevin at his apartment. I was impressed he knew how to cook, but he had filled his spare time with classes at the French Institute. “Listen, I need you to play along and tell her we met taking a cooking class. I don’t want her to know about—you know, that I used Friendr.” “Everyone uses Friendr. There’s no shame in it.”

“Will you just play along? I’ll throw in an extra hundred bucks,” Kevin said.

“Sure. Okay. What were we learning to cook?”

“What?”

“We met at cooking class. What were we learning to cook? I mean, I know how to make spaghetti and baked potatoes.”

“You aren’t cooking anything. It’s just a story—we were at class.” Abigail was already on her way up to his apartment, so I agreed, think ing it a shoddy story.

Kevin, for his part, was a gracious host. He mixed cocktails for us with the adroit skill of a seasoned bartender. He admitted later to having enrolled in several mixology courses

“I think it’s charming that Kevin takes personal improvement so seriously He’s constantly running off to a new class,” Abigail said while sipping the drink. “And Leonard, what about you? Tell us. Are you learn ing anything new?”

“Not lately, not since that cooking class I took with Kevin,” I said, attempting to sound authentic.

“What is it you do, then?”

“I was a lawyer.”

“A lawyer? Like an actual career? I didn’t know we had those any more.”

“Not for a while, actually,” I admitted “I’m between careers now.” “No shame in retiring. I thought after I sold my app that I would want to save the world with some philanthropy work, or maybe get into venture capital. But you know, I’ll be honest: retirement is far more plea surable. Maybe that’s why I find Kevin’s commitment to self-improve ment so charming.”

I smiled and played along, and afterward Kevin gave me another five stars and nominated me for a Friendr Bro Badge. ***

I saw Alice at a bar in Queens. I would recognize that red hair any where I had booked three straight weeks of Encounters without a single night off. I had been spending so much time in bars helping men meet

MacAllen 37 people, I thought for sure I’d prefer spending time alone in my apart ment. Twenty minutes after sitting alone, I realized I was lonely. I headed down to my local spot, a dive bar that gentrifying waves had overlooked. And then I saw her sitting at the counter.

“Alice, hey, how are you?” I said.

She looked up at me, stared at my face, and I could tell she didn’t recognize me. “Sorry? My name isn’t Alice.”

“We met a few months ago you were with your friend Abigail ” “Sorry, I just don’t remember you know, I have a lot of friends.” “I was going by Leonard the night we met, but you can call me Dave.”

She sighed. “Dave, you seem like a lovely person. But to be hon est—you don’t want to get involved with me. I know you think you do, but you don’t. You met Alice. She’s also a lovely person. She makes every one feel great Well, everyone except me But that’s just the thing Alice is really good at making people feel good because for her, that’s her job, it’s what she does. But for me I hate people. I think that Leonard might know what I’m talking about.”

“You’re a friend, then? Professionally, I mean.”

“No. I’m Harriet. Tonight, I’m just Harriet. Tonight, I don’t have to talk to people if I don’t want to. Tonight, Harriet wants to drink alone at a bar. Tonight, Harriet just wants to sit quietly by herself.”

“I see.”

“You can find Alice on Friendr, username AliceNChains Catchy, right? Find me on there. I’ll give you an industry discount.”

“Don’t you want something more real than that?”

She chuckled. “Nothing’s real anymore.” ***

I was surprised to find Bert had made an appointment. He wanted to take me to Game Seven of the Battle Bots World Series, and so even though there was no Swell bonus, I agreed. I could have earned triple rates helping bros trawl the singles bars, but I had never been to a Battle Bots game in person.

We met outside of the old Yankee Stadium and Bert wrapped his arms around me in a giant bear hug. “It’s so good to see you, buddy,” he said

“I’m surprised, but admittedly happy to see you too. What hap pened? Last time we talked you were selling off all your worldly posses sions ”

“Don’t I know it. But I’m back, baby! I have a new round of financ ing, this time for a seltzer-flavoring machine We add packets of flavor essence to the water. I’ve got so many people excited for it. One of the investors had tickets to this game and offered them to me. I knew I had to bring my best friend.”

“Oh, thanks, Bert, that means so much to me.”

“I used to come here with my father when the Yankees were a base ball team. You remember them?”

“It was a real tragedy when they turned the stadium into a Battle Bot arena, but I’ll be honest, I love watching a team of robots rip each other apart.”

We swiped into the stadium. The seats were magnificent, just be hind the visiting team’s goal. Sadly, the Bloomberg Bots lost in the final minutes of the game and the Suris became the new Battle Bot World Champions, but watching the match with Bert, eating a hot dog and drinking a beer, it almost felt like we were friends.

***

Kevin booked me for his wedding “Dude, you need to wear a tux, but I can rent one for you if you need,” he said in the message. The Swell surcharge was a ten times multiplier, so obviously I said yes. Kevin had rented out Ellis Island for the event. He had invited three hundred of his closest friends, and we all had to ride the little tipsy ferryboats to the island.

“What’s the matter, you don’t have your sea legs yet?” Kevin joked with me. What he hadn’t told me was that I was to be the seventh grooms man in his wedding party. At least he didn’t expect me to make a speech.

The ferry docked and we met up with the bride for photos along the water. Among the bridesmaids, I saw Alice, her bright red hair dis cordant next to the pale blue bridesmaid dresses.

Between pictures, I found a moment to speak to her. “Funny seeing you here.”

“You’re friends with the groom?” she asked. “Friends,” she empha sized a second time.

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“And Abigail is Alice’s friend?”

“Premium Swell charge today.” She smiled at the thought. I nodded. “So are we allowed to mingle?”

“Alice is here through tomorrow’s farewell brunch. Abigail even got me a hotel room down the hall from the wedding suite with the rest of the bridal party.”

“How thoughtful.”

“You do seem nice enough. Leonard, right?”

“Today, yes.”

“Listen, Leonard, I don’t want you to think it’s just that Harriet can be a real bitch. I mean, nobody is paying her to be nice and that means the teeth come out.”

She touched my hand ever so slightly, and then the photographer was calling us back for another line up.

Later, after the ceremony, after the speeches, when the bride and groom were drunk, Alice and I danced to a slow song. I felt her body breathing next to mine and for a brief moment that was all I really want ed, another human to stand beside and feel the beating of her heart against mine. But the song ended, and the lights came on, and I went home ***

I returned the tuxedo to the rental store. The computer spat out a receipt and I wondered if Kevin would ever tell his wife the truth about how he and I met, that I still didn’t know how to cook anything worth a damn. I assumed that since Alice had attended the wedding, Abigail hadn’t bothered telling him about their relationship. They had both crafted their own perfect world. They could afford to do that. They could probably keep paying Alice and I to show up at those important mo ments for the rest of their lives—the birth of their children, birthdays, anniversaries, bar mitzvahs, weddings, and maybe even their funerals. I had heard plenty of stories of Friendr associates booking final Encoun ters.

I had cleared my schedule for a few days thinking I needed a break after the wedding. It was then I decided to log onto Friendr not as an as sociate but as a client. I just wanted someone to talk to for a few minutes who didn’t need me to be someone else I just needed a friend.

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