Rent-a-friend?

In the first episode of 'Andrew Marr's Megacities' last week, Tokyo was featured, along with a tiny soulless all-glass apartment that made Andrew Marr feel like "a nude frog in a box" (strange...do frogs usually wear clothes then?).  He went on to say that he'd found Tokyo pretty much as soulless as the apartment; though it was a breathtaking city it was hard to find any genuine laughter or joie de vivre anywhere in it.  To illustrate his point, he mentioned that there are companies in Tokyo that offer a 'rent-a-friend' service...just imagine being so unhappy and isolated that you feel moved to actually hire someone to be your friend?

But I didn't find this as much of a depressing fact as Andrew Marr seemed to have hoped for.  Partly because I'd read an article in the paper last year talking about how you could rent-a-friend in London, and also because I've been in the position of wanting to make new friends and not knowing what to do about it, so I resorted to drastic measures as well.  I advertised for them.

Age 22, most of my friends had either settled down or weren't interested in going out.  At the time I was living in a shared house with four other people and was pretty much desperate to be out as much as possible...so lacking the confidence to make friends the 'normal' way, I decided to put an ad in the local paper, underneath the 'Personals' section, where each week a few lonely souls advertised for friends (this was in the days before the internet - think of it as a crude version of Facebook, if you like!)

The process was an interesting and sometimes hilarious experience.  Potential friends could leave messages for me on a designated answering machine, and I'd come home from work quivering in anticipation (or something like that).  I'd been expecting intelligent, interesting and sparkly people to have called (yes, I was still living in Southend - I just had the brimming optimism of youth still on my side).  But some of the messages were just plain creepy.  "Hello there, my name is Leslie (Phillips?) If you'd like a good time, please call me on...mobile number" Errr...that'll be a no, then.  Equally "no-worthy" was the monotone sounding man who left a message saying "I've actually got loads of friends, but none of them want to go to my favourite place.  I can't tell you where it is over the phone, but give me a call and we'll arrange to go there...I know you'll love it" (if there was ever an answer-machine message that made you want to shower it off!)

In the end I did get two messages from girls who sounded genuine, so I arranged to meet them...and we had nothing in common at all.  One was Sting's biggest fan (she turned up at the pub wearing a 'Sting' T-shirt and then proceeded to talk about him all night), whilst the other was more interested in talking to men than me (which is understandable!)

Hopefully this little essay hasn't made me sound too 'sad'.  Since then I've made some really good friends just by virtue of actually getting out more and talking to people.  But I wanted to demonstrate my sympathy with the people of Tokyo, and of London, who'd rather rent a friend than actually go to the effort of trying to make one.  Seems quite sensible to me!