COMPANY '

It's called "Rent a Friend," was born in the United States and is spreading around the world, including Italy. For an additional fee attorney company to go to the cinema, an exhibition, or to find someone to accompany you on a visit to a city that is not yours. Strictly platonic relationships and a rich database of offers

MARCO EASTER

BY evening at the cinema in the shopping center, to visit the museum or an aperitif. They are versatile, but not exactly impartial who have seen their hourly rate, not too cheap: the new friends to rent, ready to keep you company, you can select from a catalog online. It 's the idea behind the U.S. site Rent a Friend , who, after having said the United States (where it can count on 2000 members) now reaches around the world. Italy included. "Our service is different from that of dating sites, none of which offers friendship - said Scott Rosenbaum, the founder, a 30 year old New Jersey - is at stake here only a platonic relationship."

The site boasts of being the one that, in the U.S., offers the lowest rates and the richest database of friends. When registering, you pay $ 25, and the rent of a friend would cost almost $ 10 per hour, with a peak of $ 50. Some of them, in fact, may decide to vary the rate, depending on the activity that is their request. Offers many options: in addition to the classic movie nights, theater or restaurant, or even the day at the beach, you can go to the site when you visit a new city and want to have someone explaining the beauties of the place. The catalog, which can count on 218mila potential friends, there are also people with specific skills: foreign language teachers, instructors fitness but also snowboarding and yoga, painters, singers and dancers, and so on. "If you have an extra ticket to a concert or a game - it is suggested - and you do not want to go it alone, you can use rent a friend". Finally, you can shell out $ 10 an hour just to "seek advice": "Many people only want to give advice - reads the web page dedicated to enrollment - and can be useful to have the perspective of a person external ".

The search for a person with whom to spend some free time is very simple: just type the zip code, select the sex of the friend of the perfect turn, and press enter. For now, the search is limited to the United States and Canada, even if you already accept submissions from all over the world, including Italy. The cards contain individuals of course a photo, biographical data and a description of character, and of course the favorite activities. Friends indicate if they want to spend time with a man, a woman, or equally with both sexes. No one can offer or search for sex, at least not explicitly: who should contravene this still point of the community, will be immediately expelled.

Because many people convenga offer their time to the operators of Rent a Friend is easily explained in the section "Get Paid to his friend," where you toss a "recruiting" in the world. And where are revealed the advantages of this kind of activity. "You can earn up to $ 50 an hour plus you will have free dinners and concerts. Become your own boss. You decide what you pay and when to work, "reads the site, which starts from this assumption:" Around the world there are millions of people in search of friends, ready to pay. " It also presented a scheme of wage-type. If you decide to work part-time, three days a week, at an hourly rate of $ 20, if they earn 480 per week. If the commitment rises to 5 days per week, more than 20 dollars an hour, you can pocket $ 800 per week. Guarantees are also provided on the absence of sex: "There will be no physical contact during your meetings with other members. You will only need to offer your friendship. "

A similar service is also offered by Rent a Local Friend, an initiative launched by a Portuguese journalist, and also available in Italy, in Rome and Milan. In this case, however, tourism is predominant: the target is represented by solitary travelers, who are offered the opportunity to hire a friend to help guide you in the tourist resort of turn. Even in Japan, the agencies that make provisions for rent friends are very popular in the last eight years, have doubled. They number ten. The increasingly widespread, Office Agent, offers its customers a catalog of a thousand people.