Would you pay hundreds or thousands for someone to pretend
to be your boyfriend? With apps like Tinder, and dating sites, there’s always a
way to get a guy for free these days. If you don’t want to be single, you don’t
have to be single.
But apparently it’s much harder to catch a man in China,
which has led to “renting a boyfriend” being a huge phenomenon. And it’s just
like every tv show ever where a guy has paid a stripper to be his fake
girlfriend for the day (but probably without all the hijinks). Women pay a guy
to pretend they’re dating and come meet her parents or friends. Or sometimes these
guys will just be paid to hangout and pretend they're dating purely so the woman
can feel less lonely for a while.
Unsurprisingly, the demand for this service is increasing in
the run up to Valentine’s. And this isn’t always just a “come to dinner with me
and my mum” type of fake-date. Some of these dates will involve huge amounts of
travel and last several days.
Zhu Ruisen is one of these rent-a-boyfriends, based in
Beijing. Speaking to CBC he explained his plans for the Valentine’s holiday,
for which he’s been rented. He’ll be travelling over 400km with a woman, to
stay with her family so she can pretend to them that she’s dating someone.
He explains:
"There is a big demand: many clients have this need...There are many hits on the [web] advertisement. It's very popular"
This
will be costing her a negotiated-down price of $485 (£290) for his company
alone. She’ll also be forking out for flights and hotels, and a number of
activities will be charged as extras. For example, Zhu plans to charge her $10
each time she wants him to go shopping with her. Hand holding and hugs are charged
at $1 a time.
So this woman will be paying an absolute fortunate to pretend she’s not single, although she is still getting a better deal than Zhu’s girlfriend, who will be alone on Valentine’s, with no idea what her boy is up to.
He explains:
"There is a big demand: many clients have this need...There are many hits on the [web] advertisement. It's very popular"
So this woman will be paying an absolute fortunate to pretend she’s not single, although she is still getting a better deal than Zhu’s girlfriend, who will be alone on Valentine’s, with no idea what her boy is up to.
Ari Carrington