You can hire a family. The Tokyo agency Hagemashi-tai, meaning ‘We Want to Cheer You Up,’ is one of ten outfits in Japan that supply clients with adult actors willing to impersonate any blood relation you require—a loving dad to pick up your kids from school; reputable parents to vouch for you at a matchmaking party; noncomplaining, huggable grandchildren to spend the day with you; a trial husband who leaves towels on your bathroom floor to help you practice for your upcoming marriage.
Scott Rosenbaum, a thirty-one-year-old former Internet marketer who lives in New Jersey, read a newspaper article about this phenomenon and founded Rent-a-Friend, in October, 2009. The company has a database of more than three hundred thousand members around the world who can be employed, by paying subscribers, for platonic companionship. … Occasionally, Rosenbaum said, the client’s request is more unorthodox. When a college student was caught drinking on campus, he hired surrogate parents from Rent-a-Friend to accompany him to the disciplinary meeting with a dean. A friend in need is a friend in deed, indeed.
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