FAKE FINANCIAL NEWS
Benefits with Friends This side hustle provides companionship for almost any occasion—at a price
By Vonetta Logan
A
Starbucks in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Ill., bears a striking resemblance to nearly any other strip mall Starbucks. It’s filled with cougars wearing yoga pants, students tapping at laptops and geriatric Russians playing chess. I find a seat at a communal table and place my laptop case on the seat across from me. A harried student comes in and asks, “Is this seat taken?” “Yes,” I reply, “I’m saving it for my friend.” The student shuffles off in search of a power port. A few minutes later, Alyssa walks in, long black hair cascading over
her shoulders, her cheeks rosy from the blustery cold weather, her glasses fogging from the change in temperature. She sits down and I set up my recorder. What I couldn’t explain to the student, and what I have a hard time explaining to you, dear Luckbox reader, is that I was saving a seat for my friend; a friend I rented on the internet. What appears to be two millennial women catching up over banana loaves and dirty chai lattes is actually a first-time meeting between two people whose relationship is transactional and facilitated by rentafriend.com.
Alyssa hopes to make real friends through her side hustle as a RentaFriend companion.
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The site was founded 10 years ago by serial entrepreneur Scott Rosenbaum. The “strictly platonic friendship” site generates revenue from members who pay $24.95 a month for access to more than 620,000 rentable “friends.” Savvy side-hustlers create free profiles and rent themselves out for anywhere from $10 to $50 an hour for activities ranging from hiking to catching the latest museum exhibit or helping plan a party. The site features full-color images of “friends,” showcasing areas of interest, height, hair color and eye color. The data blurs the line between a platonic friend site and a potential dating site. Most people don’t search for friends by cup size. An online search for RentaFriend yields enough weirdness to make it seem the site exists solely to help journalists write clickbait stories. But Alyssa assures me the requests are genuine. “I joined in the summer, and I’ve met three people in person since then,” she notes. She’s a single mom, so it’s hard to meet new people. She sees the site as an avenue to forge possible friendships while also earning extra cash. Her first “friend” was a woman. “I really thought it was more weird for a woman to be looking for a friend,” she recalls. “I could see how men would want one, [but] we texted for about a week and it was for her bachelorette party.” The bachelorette festivities included a DJ, fun games and even a “naughty cake,” Alyssa recalls.
luckbox | december 2019
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11/14/19 3:20 PM
