I recently came across an essay in which author Ann Patchett beautifully sums up the crux of what I hope will emerge in the final months of this search. “[Here’s] my idea of real intimacy,” she writes. “It’s not the person who calls to say, ‘I’m having an affair’; it’s the friend who calls to say, ‘Why do I have four jars of pickles in my refrigerator?’ ” I want someone with whom I can talk about the deep stuff—hopes and dreams and expectations and disappointments—and also the minutiae. Sometimes it takes talking about everything to get to the place where we can talk about nothing.
In the time since my six-month assessment, friendships have evolved. I might call Natalie for a ride to the airport, or Hannah or Rachel or Jillian for a shoulder to cry on after a fight with Matt. I’d bounce health questions—is that a freckle? Or a mole?—off of Lynn, Kari, Ashley, or Joan. But the four-jars-of-pickles analysis? We’re not quite there yet.
CHAPTER 12
I’ve given in to paying for friendships. If eHarmony can charge two hundred forty dollars a year, then coughing up five dollars per month for GirlFriendCircles or thirty dollars for the personal attention of Meet Joe or fifteen dollars for speed-friending isn’t so bad. Considering that studies show people value time with friends more than time with their romantic partners, these sites might be a bargain.
There’s a difference, though, between subscribing to a service that will connect you with potential friends and straight up paying someone to hang out with you.
Enter RentAFriend.com.
The website is exactly what it sounds like. Unless it sounds like an escort service. Because the company promises in BIG BOLD LETTERS on its homepage (which looks like it was designed for my 1987 Apple IIe computer) that solicitation is prohibited and the site is for “friendship purposes only.” It bears noting, however, that plenty of the friends-for-hire post pictures that I’d qualify as more suggestive than friendly—hello, cleavage—and the majority of customers rent friends of the opposite sex.
While I can peruse the site (narrowing my potential pals first by zip code and then by gender) for free, I’ll need to hand over some cash—$24.95 per month or $69.95 for the full year—in order to contact anyone. And if I find someone I want to hang out with? I’ll need to pay her directly on top of my monthly fee. “Friends” charge anywhere from ten to one hundred fifty dollars per hour, though twenty to fifty dollars is the norm.
Kari told me about RentAFriend in May after she saw it on a local news segment. In June my aunt emailed me an article about the service. A month later a blog reader sent the link my way. Sure it may be a prostitution ring, but who better to give it a test drive, they said. I can handle shady and inappropriate advances if need be. I’m tough.
RentAFriend is modeled after similar successful sites in Asia and boasts more than three hundred thousand friends for rent. People hire friends for anything from a business trip dinner date to a weekly companion for their elderly mother. According to an MSNBC profile of the company, two college kids once rented friends to pose as parents after they were caught drinking on campus.
Um, those are not friends. Those are called actors.
If I sound skeptical, it’s because I am. Isn’t the very nature of friendship reciprocal? If I have to pay someone for her company, it’s not exactly a partnership of equals.
But I’ve come this far, so it’s only logical that I should rent a friend. At least see what it’s about. I’ll find the one Chicago-based woman on the site who gives off no I’ll-pleasure-you-for-money vibes and invite her on an outing. In a public place. In broad daylight.
Maybe my cynicism is misguided. The friends-for-hire might be regular Janes, looking for new pals and some extra cash. Come January I’ll be a pro at girl-dates. Perhaps I could lease myself out.
This afternoon, while sitting in Starbucks, I type my zip code into the site’s search field. I narrow the results to female only. Of the women within six years of my age, only three aren’t ogling the camera. (Four if you count the girl who I’m pretty sure is flashing the Bloods gang sign. I don’t.) Two of those three, Sascha and Christine, are my age.
Sascha’s profile reads: “I just want to have a good time, whether it’s drinking coffee while figuring out which destinations should be on the short list or dancing on the beach with our smuggled cocktails (umbrella usually not optional, even if it’s an Old Style tall boy) or getting dressed up for a nice night out. Gals, I know how to meet boys. Guys, hard to find a better wingwoman. I’ve been lucky enough to meet a whole gaggle of incredible people over the last year, and always love meeting more.” In one of Sascha’s profile pictures she’s in the stands of a football game, her arm around a middle-aged shirtless guy wearing a cowboy hat and what appears to be a Wyoming Football barrel around his waist, held up by suspenders.
Candidate number two, Christine, has a much shorter profile. “I am very outgoing and love connecting with people! I love living in Chicago and exploring different neighborhoods. I can strike up a conversation with anyone and put people at ease. Let’s hang out!”
I’m leaning toward Sascha—she sounds like a party animal!—until I come to my senses. She sounds like a party animal. Every now and then I have a momentary memory lapse and forget I’m not in college anymore. I don’t want to smuggle cocktails on the beach. I hate the beach! Taking pictures with beer-soaked locals in crazy costumes doesn’t crack me up, it makes me uncomfortable. Christine seems more like the me I actually am, as opposed to the me I sometimes pretend I am.
I send Christine an email explaining that I am new(ish) to Chicago and am always looking for different ways to meet people. And though I’ve never used RentAFriend before, it seemed an interesting concept. Would she be up for meeting?
Within a few hours I have a response.
“Hey Rachel—
I got your info from RentAFriend and wanted to connect! I am new to this site and basically wanted to find ways to supplement my part-time job with some income. I decided to charge $20 an hour, and would love to get together. Let me know.”
After we exchange some more emails and I explain my background (i.e., I am not a creep trying to solicit sex), I suggest a trip to the farmers’ market next week. She ups the ante to lunch and the farmers’ market and the museum. At twenty dollars an hour.
It’s a date. Likely a pricey one.
Of all the various organizations and classes I’ve joined since starting this search, I was most leery of LEADS, the young Jewish group that Pam, the JUF News editor, told me about earlier this year. For whatever reason, I’ve always avoided religiously oriented events. Maybe it’s because I don’t usually click with those who frequent Purim Parades and Matzo Balls, the Christmas Eve party for Jewish singles. (I’ve never been, but I hear some of the antics that take place are, shall we say, not kosher.) Or perhaps Matt’s objection to organized religion has influenced my own take on temple. (I can’t remember the last time I entered one for anything other than a wedding or funeral.) I know it sounds silly, given that so many of my friends are Jewish, but very few of them are religious. Forget orthodox, conservative, and reformed. To me, Judaism has two sects: Those who equate Jewish geography with a map of Israel, and those who play by asking if you know the Rosenbergs of Scarsdale. My Jewish friends have always been the latter.
I worried that signing up for LEADS (which stands for Leadership Education and Development Series) would be akin to a lie. Wouldn’t I be declaring that Judaism was deeply important to me just by enrolling in the eight-week course? Didn’t it imply that I’d lit the Shabbat candles more recently than twenty years ago?
Jewish organizations host programs like LEADS in order to recruit young Jews like me and to invite outsiders into the community, so I decided the false pretenses argument didn’t hold water. It’s not like I’m Catholic, showing up to a Jewish mixer wearing a tallis.
At the inaugural session we spent most of the evening playing Fun-Fact Bingo. Another icebreaker game! My specialty! (My fact: I coached a
third-grade girls Catholic Youth Organization basketball team to win the New York State Archdiocesan Championship. It seemed apropos.) Group introductions came next. As we went around the room explaining why we joined LEADS, I noticed a recurring theme: “I’m the only Jew in my group of friends, so I figured this would be a good way to expand my Jewish network.” Probably two-thirds of our group gave a variation of that explanation. A few said their friends had tried LEADS and loved it, so they were jealous. And one girl, with a thick southern accent, said “Hey, y’all! I just moved here from Alabama and I don’t know anyone here or have any friends. So if you need friends, I do, too!”
Bless her heart. There were some nervous giggles in response to her impromptu speech, but I applauded this girl’s candor. The ladies who announced they joined LEADS to meet their future husband got laughs, but they were laughs of recognition, not pity. Most everyone nodded in agreement (I’m one of only three married people in my group, and the other two are married to each other). When the southern belle declared she needed new friends, the look on the guy sitting next to me seemed to say, “Oh, this poor girl just admitted she was a loser.”
Much has changed during this year of friending, but one thing has not. In the eyes of 20- and 30-somethings, a proclamation of friendlessness still equals loneliness, while admitting you want a lover just makes you a modern woman.
I admired her. Maybe if I’d been so bold when I first moved to Chicago I could have saved myself two years of frustration.
Then came my turn. “I’m always looking to meet new people, and someone suggested I try LEADS, so here I am.”
We all joined for the same basic reason—to meet new people. No one said, “I’m here because I am super-religious and was hoping to deepen my understanding of the Israelites.” Sure, there are varying degrees of observance in the room—from me, the borderline nonpracticer, to Miriam, the conservative Jew who leads our meetings’ infrequent prayers—but the organization is focused on building a community rather than pushing a religious viewpoint.
I hit it off pretty quickly with Meredith, a pharmaceutical sales rep who is from Rhode Island but has lived in Chicago for five years.
“I need to meet some Jews!” Meredith told me when I asked why she signed up. “Seriously, I want to date Jewish guys and I don’t know how to meet them in this city. Although, considering I was one of, like, ten Jews in Rhode Island, I’ve never had an easy time of it.”
Last Friday was our LEADS Shabbat dinner. If I had any residual worries that this program might be too pious for me, the sausage and pepperoni pizza entrée took care of them. The festivities kicked off with an übercompetitive game of charades (to be fair, I might have contributed to the cutthroat nature of the game. What can I say? I like to win, and I can act out “Jesus Take the Wheel” like nobody’s business. Just part your hair in the middle and stand there like the Crucifixion. Duh.) and continued on to some serious beer pong.
I was partnered with Rob, our LEADS leader and my first straight male potential friend to come out of this search, while Meredith was teamed up with Steve. Given the amount of unnecessary hugging and touching going down on their team, I had a hunch where their evening was headed. So when Meredith said “Please stay!” after I started to pack up my things, I could see the pleading in her eyes and dropped my purse. There’s no fast track to BFFship like being someone’s wingwoman.
FRIEND-DATE 40. On Monday, I’m hungry for some good girl talk. When I left the party on Friday it was 1 A.M. and the rest of the group was heading to a neighborhood bar. I, being the old married lady that I am, couldn’t fathom going out that late.
“Okay, tell me everything,” I say to Meredith when we meet at our mutual yoga place for our first official girl-date. “Did you guys make out?”
“We did,” she says sheepishly. “He’s really sweet, isn’t he?”
“Totally! I think he’s great.”
“He’s only twenty-five though. I’m twenty-eight.”
“And? Three years is nothing,” I say. “So what happened? Fill me in!” I sound like a fiending crack addict who’s fallen off the wagon. I didn’t know how much I’ve missed talking about boys until this moment. Most of my friends have paired off by now, and as for the ones that haven’t, it’s harder to get worked up into high-school-gossip mode when you’re hundreds of miles away and don’t know the guy in question. It’s been a while since I’ve gone to a party and witnessed the first bats of an eyelash, so I feel like a part of the action for the first time in too long.
Getting the details from Meredith—he kissed her good night, she didn’t invite him up but definitely wants to see him again, he asked her out the next day—makes me realize just how much I’ve missed gossiping. Not chatting—swapping stories about our jobs or husbands or stance on Letterman vs. Leno—but truly gossiping. As in, comparing notes about other people and revealing details that might not be public information.
Before you cast me off as the next Blair Waldorf, hear this: Plenty of studies have confirmed that gossip can be good for you. It can promote trust, forge connections, and provide an informal method for learning unwritten social norms. Positive gossip—the kind where you shower an unknowing third party in compliments about how great her outfit looked or how cute her baby is—can raise self-esteem and reduce negative emotions. Office gossip, which my workday is drowning in, can create employee camaraderie. I’ll never forget, at my first job out of college, the day my entire department inadvertently discovered how much a long-distance consultant was getting paid. (Note to office managers: Never leave a freelance employee’s invoice on the printer all day.) As far as we could tell, his only job requirement was to call in to a department meeting each morning. Everyone felt equally underpaid, outraged, and slightly amused. What better way to bond a group of women—from intern to senior staff member—than to collectively calculate how much our British adviser made each time he said “Cheerio!”
The flip side of that coin is that negative gossip—the kind that’s more common and, let’s face it, usually more fun—has the opposite effect, and is a much more powerful influence. Nice gossip only gives a 3 percent positivity boost, while trash-talking makes us feel 34 percent worse.
I’m not necessarily looking for someone to share a bitchfest with. I just want to say “She said what?!?!” and “Give me every detail about your date,” and this has been my first opportunity as of late.
“He is so adorable,” I say when she tells me Steve has offered to take her on a music-themed first date. “I can’t wait to hear what happens next.”
As I add notches to my girl-dating belt, I’ve started reflecting on my strengths and weaknesses as a friend. I like to think I’m a pretty good one. I pride myself on my willingness to drop what I’m doing for a BFF in need. When I got a text from Callie one Friday night this summer—“Can you call me??”—I immediately ducked into the bathroom of the party I was attending to check in. There were some wedding woes, and I was happy to do my best to calm her down. Even if it meant locking myself in the host’s bathroom for twenty minutes. When friends have birthday parties or performances, I rejigger my schedule to make sure I’m there. I’ve been lucky to have friends who are healthy and happy, but I’d be by their side if one day they weren’t.
Still, I’m hardly perfect and lately I’ve become increasingly aware of my shortcomings in the friendship department. When you spend some five nights a week with friends—whether they’re potential or established—you notice patterns in your own behavior, even when they are less than flattering.
To start, I am an interrupter. I’ll think I’m listening, but just as my friend is wrapping up a thought, as she’s presenting the big conclusion, I’ll jump in with my two cents. As I’ve become cognizant of this tendency I hear myself apologizing a lot—“Sorry! I interrupted. Continue”—and recoiling, but after twenty-eight years of cutting people off it’s as natural as blinking. I can’t stop myself. I’m trying, but so far my success rate is pitiful.
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It would be one thing if I were interrupting with helpful insights—“It sounds like that was really hard on you”—or prodding questions—“And how did that make you feel?”—or even with requests for clarification—“Now, where did this happen again?” But no. I interrupt with stories. About myself.
If I’m talking to a friend about her relationship woes, I might offer a story about Matt and me. My side of conversations often sound like this: “Oh my God, you got mugged? Let me tell you about my friend who got carjacked.” Or “You love Sex and the City? I once saw Sarah Jessica Parker on the street!”
It’s obnoxious, I know, and now that I’ve realized I do this, I’m horrified. My improv teacher recently told a story about his neighbor, who is constantly only half listening.
“He’s one of those guys who, as you’re talking, it’s like you can see him scrolling through his mental Rolodex, looking for the perfect story that is related enough for him to bring up, but it’s better because, you know, it stars him.”
Ew. That’s me.
It’s not that I’m trying to one-up anyone—if you tell me you ran the marathon, I’ll counter that I once trained for the half—it’s just my backward way of empathizing. I communicate that I hear you and I understand by saying “You’ll never believe what happened to me,” when what I should be saying is “I hear you and I understand.”
There was a brief period in high school when I wanted to be a psychologist one day. I think we can all agree it’s best that never came to pass.
My other friendship flaw dawned on me last night. It was my friend Lindsey’s birthday party. Lindsey was the only new friend I’d made in Chicago before this year started. For her big night, she invited a few girls out for drinks. I arrived a little late because Matt and I had been bowling with Gretchen, my new friend from the Mac ’n Cheese Minglers adventure, and her boyfriend. When I showed up at Benchmark, the new sportsbar-meets-nightclub in Old Town, there was already a line to get in. So I waited. Solo.
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