According to an article I read online a couple of years ago, a Japanese man found a way of earning a modest living by renting himself out to people who wanted a companion, whether  because they were lonely, bored and wanted someone to accompany them to a hospital appointment or, when it was possible, to a social event.

Maybe you read the same article…..if so, what did you think about it?

Apparently, Shoji Morimoto, who’s 39 years old, received thousands of requests for his services and rented himself out under the name of ‘Rental Person Who Does Nothing’. He charged about 10,000 yen which is around £70 and added on expenses for any travel and meals. He met clients for a chat and a drink but nothing more than that. In fact, he advertised himself as a person who could “eat and drink, and give simple feedback, but do nothing more”. As well as having thousands of Twitter followers he’s published books, although I couldn’t find them online, but presumably they’re based around his experiences of going for a walk with clients, shopping with them or accompanying them when they have appointments with a professional. As far as I can tell, his business is still going strong.

In some ways, I’m thinking that this is a very worthwhile service, but also – it’s sad that we live in a society where people have to pay someone to alleviate their feeling of being alone. I doubt that this is confined to Japan as loneliness affects people worldwide although I suspect not so much in collectivist cultures. However, apparently that isn’t true as people don’t seem to be lonelier in societies that are traditionally labelled ‘individualistic’.  It’s common to live alone in those societies but it doesn’t always go hand in hand with loneliness. Interesting…..  see the link below for more information about this:

https://ourworldindata.org/lonely-not-alone

If you’ve spent five years or fifty years in a relationship and that person is no longer there, either because they’ve died or left, it can leave a huge hole when you’ve been used to having someone to share your life with. Even if you didn’t do a lot together and had few shared interests, that person was there physically at least. The same goes for a sibling or close friend – if they’re no longer in your life, for whatever reason, the void left can be very hard to fill Maybe you’ve decided to try to find more people to share your life with, not necessarily in a relationship, but you want people who provide a degree of companionship that you feel you’re missing. If so, going for a walk every day and just saying “hello” to whoever you meet along the way as well as texting someone in your family or a friend to see how they are is a good start. I know that this isn’t as easy as it might sound, but you could try joining a group that interests you as well. I understand that these sort of suggestions can be exhausting but companionship and friends don’t always arrive in your life when you want or need them and although it’s better if they happen naturally, sometimes we have to go out there and find them, hard though that is.

So I’m saying that it’s not easy to make these changes but if you try them, you may well find the companionship that’s important to you.

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