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The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#231

Post by visarga »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #66
visarga wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people have high expectations from life but low willingness to accept and adapt. So they'll rent a fake to cut corners.

How does that explanation tie up with the example given in the article where a girl was being bullied for not having a father? Is that driven by willingness to cut corners?

In that case the mother wanted to give the girl a fake father experience, she should have tried to give her a real adoptive father instead. The mother wanted to have the perks of a real father without doing the hard work of entering a relation, like everyone does.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#232

Post by mdda »

hutzlibu wrote: post #214
sho wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article specifically mentions the positive outcome of the arrangement - the young woman's confidence has improved, destructive behaviour stopped, bullying stopped, and she has the father figure she obviously needs at this critical part of her development. And from all appearances he is genuinely doing his best to be that. It's very hard for me to condemn this when the outcome seems so inarguably positive. Truthfu…

"O righteous crusaders for truth, if this girl was put in front of you, would you tell her?" Maybe yes. Along with the fact that her fake father dreams about telling her the truth, but is afraid to do so. So then they can maybe have a real relationship and see each other whenever they want to and not only when her mother pays him to be professional. Because clearly both have a real connection. Btw. is he not scared o…

He may have sent an actor along to represent him for the interview / photoshoot.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#236

Post by pixelcort »

jhiska wrote: post #201

The story seems fake. Does anyone have a link to this "Family Romance" corporation? Where is the proof? Why would the guy be so ruthlessly candid about his immoral failings? Why does he talk in a carefully manicured, but cruel and amoral way -- why is he dissing his own product? Why would he plaster his face on The Atlantic when he depends on anonymity? They have 800 employees -- that's large; why haven't we heard of…

I'm living in Tokyo. There are a few companies providing these kinds of services. I get print advertisements in my mailbox weekly for them.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#237

Post by sdrothrock »

cableshaft wrote: post #100
sdrothrock wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty hard to just up and make friends in Japan. People generally stick to social/activity circles, but even then, you have boundaries. For example, if you have a golfing group, you guys may go out for drinks but that would be that. You'd almost (key word) never go over to someone else's house, or go see movies together, or any of that -- they're your "golf people." But that's assuming that you do have a golf g…

This is common in the U.S. too. I can't begin to tell you how many threads I've encountered where people go "How do you make friends after college?" or studies that show that people lose friends over time and hardly gain any after college, on average. But, I don't think it has to be that way in the US. I myself went from having few friends to having more than I can keep up with, thanks to a period of two years where…

> Most people don't make that effort here, though, and that's one reason why they struggle

As far as "making an effort" goes, I can only speak for myself (in the sense that it's not worth judging whether other people are "trying" from their appearance), but it's definitely pretty difficult to get past that initial "social circle" restriction.

For example, I've worked at the same company for a few years, gone out for drinks with a few coworkers... attempts at casual chats between work, invitations to stuff beyond work, etc. are all politely rebuffed.

I've also done airsoft before; with the exception of one guy who's also actively looking for friends, nobody is interested in doing anything beyond airsoft. As far as I can guess, they're in that group to do airsoft, not to make friends or do other things with those people -- they just want to do airsoft.

As I said in the beginning though, this is just me and I don't think it's fair for me to judge whether other people are "making an effort," but my own efforts seem to indicate that it's a problem beyond that.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#238

Post by sdrothrock »

andischo wrote: post #21

This interview makes me wonder where we are heading as the human race. The Japanese society, so certainly very different in some aspects, does strike me as a glimpse into the future of western society. Technology has a much bigger impact on the daily life there and I believe that this is one of the main reasons, why (face-to-face) social interactions are becoming more infrequent. What struck me the most from the arti…

> Technology has a much bigger impact on the daily life there

I see this a lot and I'd like to see what kind of technology you think exists here and has an impact on daily life here that doesn't exist/have an impact elsewhere.

Japanese technology that reaches the west is often the high-concept/prototype kind that definitely does not have any daily impact on anything, urban or rural.

The most ubiquitous pieces of technology I can think of that exist here that do not exist elsewhere are:

1. washlets (fancy bidets)

2. suica (cashless payment via touching a card)

and while neither of those exist as such elsewhere, similar things do... and neither of those really impact Japanese society to such a degree that I would consider Japanese society to be a "glimpse into the future of western society."

To me, Western society seems to be much further along any curve of alienization, with automatic cars and outsourced phone support (Japanese being a niche language, you're almost guaranteed to be talking to a real Japanese person for phone support).

One of the reasons I'm responding to this so strongly is that I dislike the continued "exotification" of Japan as some kind of strange, ineffable future-land and really strive to correct that kind of opinion wherever I can. It's nothing personal, but it only hurts all parties involved when Japan is seen in this light.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#239

Post by circlefavshape »

musage wrote: post #73
sho wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article specifically mentions the positive outcome of the arrangement - the young woman's confidence has improved, destructive behaviour stopped, bullying stopped, and she has the father figure she obviously needs at this critical part of her development. And from all appearances he is genuinely doing his best to be that. It's very hard for me to condemn this when the outcome seems so inarguably positive. Truthfu…

> the young woman's confidence has improved, destructive behaviour stopped, bullying stopped What makes you think that wouldn't have happened over time by itself? What's the message here, bullying someone for having lost her father is okay, not having a father is not okay? That's normalizing people being bullied for being humans. It's normalizing not allowing a widow to find another lover who at least may have an act…

> When I worked in a hospital, I was constantly amazed at the idle chit chat relatives made with people who had very short time left.

Last week, for the first time in my life, someone I care about died. There was lots of "idle chit-chat" as we sat around him (in a coma) in the hospital for 2 weeks, waiting for the end. IMO the content of our conversation didn't really count for much, it was being there for each other that mattered. Words are not the only way you can express deep emotions

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#240

Post by underwoodley »

_aldr wrote: post #157
bjourne wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's very hard for me to condemn this when the outcome seems so inarguably positive. Truthfulness is important, yes, but so is outcome. And if this woman after ten or twenty years, when she is well-adjusted with a career and family of her own, finds out the truth, would she be angry with her mother - or thank her? Given the amount of adopted kids that have been lied to, and later found out, she'll be absolutely fur…

> Her mother is a lazy, dishonest bitch who bought a fake father rather than finding a real one for her daughter. Japan is full of single men so it's not like that option wasn't available to her. I think that's harsh and short sighted. Why is marrying a single man better for her daughter? How is that more "real"? It's certainly not true in all cases. If her mother remarried to an abusive alcoholic do you seriously th…

It is more real because she believes that the father spends time with her each week because he loves her and wants to look after her.

In every social interaction we can never really be certain of the other person's motivations or feelings about us, or even if they really have feelings as opposed to being an automaton or a hallucination. In many cases it doesn't really matter that much. When a waiter smiles and laughs with us, they might just be thinking about their tip and how much their shoes hurt, but we can still enjoy their company.

Parenthood, romantic love, close friendship are not like this. They rely on a deep level of trust. If you pretended to be my lover, it wouldn't be enough to say "well you couldn't tell and you enjoyed it". There is an implicit shared emotional connection.

In particular, children need to be able to trust their parents.

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