With Japan’s increasingly ageing population, families are shrinking and people are becoming lonelier. Connections can seem shallow, especially with the increasing disconnect between the real world and the virtual world.

But as Maki Abe, the CEO of Client Partners, says, Japan is all about face.

What’s Gaman (我慢)?

Gaman (我慢) is a deep-seated Japanese value that translates to perseverance. In Japan, it is inculcated since young. Taught to deal with everything that comes their way without complaining or asking for help, a large part of Japanese society thus struggle with being truly vulnerable when suffering.

Enter the rent-a-friend business, a solution to this very problem.

Client Partners is one of many companies in Japan that offer friend or family rental services — simply pay them a fee and you have a new loved one to spend time with! Or an old one, if you intend to replace someone you have lost.

You can even customise your desired person — tweak their gender, age, temperament, appearance, habits and memories through an order-form description, and you’ll have a perfect person waiting for you in no time!

But one question remains: Can paid love ever be real? 

An Insider’s View

Ishii Yuichi, the owner of Family Romance, believes that his company offers a more ideal form of reality, one where misunderstandings and conflicts do not exist.

If spending year after year slowly building up trust for someone is too tiring, why not simply schedule 2 hours every week for around 10,000 yen (~$130SGD) to hang out with your ideal boyfriend instead? With no arguments, jealousy or bad habits, everything is perfect.

Or at least, on the surface. While things may seem flawless on the outside, things can sometimes go too far.

Even though lifelong companionship and fake marriages (that cost around 5 million yen! ~ $65,000 SGD) are offered as services, business is still business. Client attachment and dependency are problems that they have to tackle occasionally. 

And while some employees allow their real selves to peak through, others maintain strict boundaries between their work self and their personal self. Yuichi himself has never truly formed emotional bonds with his clients, yet he often feels guilty that he is faking everything, especially with long-standing clients.

Distinguishing your real self from your actor self is thus a problem that some employees struggle with. Along with this comes having to deal with rejecting marriage proposals, when their clients fall for the person they created themselves rather than the actual person.

To minimise such problems from happening, sharing of personal contact information is often forbidden, as well as physical contact beyond hand-holding. Besides romance, lending money is also a dealbreaker.

The real deal

People hire “friends” or “family members” for a variety of reasons. To cry at funerals, to swoon at weddings, to appear on Instagram photos, to pretend their love lives are flourishing, to replace loved ones who have passed on — the list is endless. 

But these theatrical gigs aside, most clients just crave ordinary friendship. With more and more people facing a lack of genuine human connection, these services offer an opportunity for lonely individuals to spend time and reconnect with others.

In fact, talking to a stranger may help alleviate some of the pressures faced by individuals. They can talk about their thoughts and feelings without worrying about what people they know think and it is this absence of judgement that allows them to be truly vulnerable and feel heard.

Some “friends” and “family members” even end up loosening their roles and bonding over their real problems, achievements and daily lives. In some cases, even those who are paid for companionship crave genuine connections.

While à la carte human interaction becomes the new norm, however, most friend/family rental companies have the end goal of rendering themselves unnecessary. With the understanding that the industry is thriving due to inadequate mental health reforms, they seek to help individuals cope with the unbearable absences or perceived deficiencies in their lives, at least until they are no longer needed.

By actively strategizing, they engineer outcomes in which the rental friend/family slowly makes itself redundant in the client’s life, such as by encouraging them to contact their real family or to talk about their problems until they feel better prepared to face their lives independently.

Perhaps then, affection can be paid for and be real at the same time.

Personally, 

I believe that if such services can bring a sense of comfort to individuals in need of companionship, they ultimately bring about more good than harm to the world. 

But in instances where people hire “friends” just to look or feel more popular or successful, it simply feeds into the culture of maintaining false appearances. Perpetuating such inauthenticity often ends up being more detrimental to people’s mental health, a growing problem in Japan.

Instead of taking responsibility for their own actions or circumstances, people now also have a way out of conflicts by getting strangers to impersonate those they know, creating a false reality that surely cannot be beneficial if the truth were to arise eventually.

While it may help individuals achieve more in life, such as when single-parent families rent husband/father figures for their children to have greater access to education opportunities, is this really challenging the unjust systems in Japanese society or is it simply providing individuals with more money ways to get ahead in life, thereby perpetuating inequality? 

But I guess where there is a demand for such services, the supply will always present itself. While these services can bring about good outcomes, they may also be counterproductive to society. It all depends on the motives of the clients.

I, however, choose to be optimistic and believe in the good of it all. If even a few struggling individuals are able to receive help, the world may become a slightly better place after all.

Want to try it out for yourself?

It comes as no surprise that such an innovative idea has made its way around the world, right to Singapore! Platforms such as Maybe now allow you to meet new friends, right in this little red dot.

Maybe allows you to select your preferred person from their list of personalities for a 2 hour date. You can view their available timings, date preferences, rates and more on their individual profiles, so you can choose the best fit for yourself.

If you ever try it out, don’t forget to share your experience with us!