I RENTED A FRIEND IN JAPAN, AND IT MADE ME A BETTER FRIEND

我在日本租了一个朋友，我自己却逐渐变成了一个更靠谱的朋友

Money, we like to tell ourselves, can only purchase superficial pleasures. You can buy a $1,500 gold Tiffany paper clip, but not taste. You can pay staff to do your every bidding, but not to respect you. Wealth might help you find a wife, perhaps, but not true love. Money certainly can’t buy friendship.

我们总是告诉自己：金钱，你的名字叫肤浅。你可以买1500美金的蒂芙尼回形针，大气都不喘一下。你也可以雇人帮你投标，但人家压根不把你当回事。金钱可以帮你找老婆，但是买不到真爱。金钱当然也就不可能买到一种叫友谊的东西。

In Japan, though, it can. Family Romance is a hugely successful company that rents out members of its 800-strong staff to act as its clients’ friends. Some pay for companionship over dinner, or a group to dress up in various outfits and pose for happy Instagram photos, or dates for a wedding. Others pay for the experience of having a boyfriend or girlfriend (without the physical intimacy), or they hire a groom and stage an entire fake wedding.

在日本，这却可以成真。家庭浪漫是一家有800名可以假装给客户做朋友的员工。有些客户会花钱请陪伴他们的人吃晚餐，也有的客户花钱雇不同的人穿不同的外套和他们一起假装拍气氛融洽的社交圈照骗、参加约会或婚礼。有些人花钱体验拥有男盆友/女票的感觉（不涉及亲密举动）；有的人雇佣一位新郎，举办整场假的婚礼。

After two weeks traveling in Japan with my friend and colleague Sarah Todd, we decided to hire a friend. Neither of us needed more companionship, per se. But we were curious—and skeptical—that such a service could truly replicate friendship. We figured that adding a paid friend to our duo would highlight the differences between our real relationship and whatever Family Romance could offer.

在日本旅行两周后，我和朋友兼同事莎拉 托德决定租个朋友。我们俩其实都不缺陪伴。但是我们很好奇（也心存怀疑）这种服务是否真的能复制友谊。我们觉得加一位雇佣来的朋友在我们之间能够帮助更加认清真正的友谊和家庭浪漫公司提供的雇佣友谊。

Urala Fuji, 30, met us at a café in Shimokitazawa, a bohemian neighborhood of Tokyo filled with second-hand clothing stores. Over the next three hours, we chatted about our families, admired sketches (both Sarah and Urala draw in their spare time), tried on goofy sunglasses, complained about sexual harassment, and ate pastries shaped like Miyazaki’s anime character Totoro.

乌拉拉 富士，30岁，和我们在一个咖啡厅见面，城市是下北泽，这座城市具有波西米亚风格并坐落于东京附近，以售卖二手服装闻名。在接下来的三个小时，我们聊家常、谈喜欢的素描（萨拉和乌拉拉在休闲时间自己创作的）、试戴形状愚蠢的太阳镜、抱怨性骚扰、吃了像宫崎骏创作的动漫人物龙猫的糕点。

At times, I forgot I was paying for Urala’s company. She didn’t feel like a close friend, but it was easy to believe Urala was an old acquaintance we’d looked up while in Japan. She seemed to genuinely like us, too. But, of course, that was her job.

有时，我会忘记我是花钱请来乌拉拉的。她不像是很亲近的朋友，但是却像我们在日本认识的熟人。她似乎也真的喜欢我们。但当然，这仅是她的工作。

“I want clients to think we’re dear friends,” says Urala. “It’s easy if the client is a girl. If it’s a boy, I do my best. It can be awkward.”

“我想让客户认为我们是很好的朋友，”乌拉拉说。“如果客户是位女生还好。如果是男生，我也会尽力。但是会有点尴尬。”

Before meeting Urala, I instinctively labeled her services “fake friendship.” But I couldn’t dismiss her company without first figuring out what constitutes a “real” friendship.

在遇到乌拉拉之前，我直觉的认为她的工作是“装朋友”。但是我不能一锤子买卖的否定她的公司，尤其是当我自己都不知道“友谊”是如何构成的情况下。

This is a surprisingly slippery task. Friends can be there for you in times of crisis, they can be great fun, and they can be regular sources of companionship. None of those qualities are essential to friendship, though. We all have friends who drive us mad, but we love them and would never walk away or stop caring. Some friends live on other sides of the globe and don’t speak for years, but their friendship is still unquestionably there, a thread waiting to be picked up when in the same city, or in a time of crisis.

这是个战战兢兢的任务过程。朋友是可以在你遭遇危机时依旧在身边陪伴你的人、他们能带给你巨大的快乐，也是最真实的陪伴形式。但这些都不是友谊最重要的。我们都有被朋友逼疯的时刻，但是我们事后还是很爱他们，绝不会离开他们或停止对彼此的关心。一些朋友即使生活在地球的另一端、和我们几年都没有说话，他们间的友谊也依旧不会受到任何影响。你分分钟可以在自己的城市接到探视的电话和危机时刻真正的关心。

Paid friends do not offer that indefinable, ever-present care. Instead, they take on the least pleasant elements of friendship, going along to events out of a duty to the client, rather than for their own enjoyment. Can we outsource the downsides of friendship to paid company?

花钱雇来的朋友则不会这样，他们也不会展示那种关心。相反，他们总是将友情可能包含的浅层的体验带给你，给人一种履行职责的感觉，感觉他们自己在这个过程中也并不真正的开心。我们可以把友谊的缺点外包给付费公司吗？

It might sound tempting but, I realized, doing so would leave us with no friends at all. The defining feature of friendship is that it’s not always pleasant. To be true friends with someone, sometimes you will go to Disneyland, or a ex’s wedding, or a dumb movie—not because you want to, but because your friend does. Sometimes you’ll accompany them to a nerve-wracking medical scan or a family member’s funeral. This isn’t about fun; it’s so much more.

这样说可能不厚道，但是我觉得这样雇佣朋友会最终让我们没有朋友的。友情本来就不是只有开心的部分。想做一名真正的朋友，你有时得去迪士尼乐园、参加前任的婚礼或看场脑残的电影——这些可能不是你真正想做的，但却是你朋友想让你一起做的。有时，你可能会紧张兮兮地陪他们去医院进行身体扫描或参加亲戚的葬礼。这些并不是很愉快的体验但却又意义深远。

Arguably, there’s an inverse relationship between the amount of fun and the strength of a friendship. The less fun you can have with someone, and still call them a friend, the closer the bond. We don’t gladly listen to the neuroticism or whining of people we don’t care about; nor do we reveal our own worries or over-analyze our love lives with acquaintances. Yes, this is “emotional labor,” but we do it gladly and willingly for those we care the most for.

可以说，拥有朋友意味着喜忧参半。有时你和一个人在一起时可能并不好玩，但是依旧想把对方当做朋友，并且这会将这份友情建立的更深。我们不愿意听一个人神神叨叨、啰啰嗦嗦，如果我们不太在乎那个人；我们也不太想和所谓熟人聊自己的忧虑和私人感情生活。是的，友情就是一种“情感的劳作”，但是我们对此心甘若怡并情愿为自己最在乎的人付出一切。

This is an essential truth that Aristotle remarked upon more than 2,000 years ago, pointing out that friendships based on pleasure or personal benefits were easily dissolved. “It is those who wish the good of their friends for their friends’ sake who are friends in the fullest sense,” he wrote in Nicomachean Ethics.

亚里士多德2000年前发现了一个真理，建立于愉悦和个人利益的友谊容易瓦解。“真正想让自己朋友变好的人才是真朋友。”他在《尼古拉斯伦理学》中如是写道。

At Family Romance, clients are free to indulge, often complaining about their colleagues or dating life. “I just listen, I don’t tell them my opinion,” says Urala. They’re paying to vent, after all. When you’re paying for someone’s time, you don’t have to worry about whether they’re having fun; you can focus on your own needs.

对于家庭浪漫公司而言，很多客户可以在此放纵自己，他们经常会抱怨自己的同事和感情生活。“我只是倾听，不会给他们个人的建议。”乌拉拉说。他们只是花钱来发泄自己。如果你要花钱买他人的时间，你就不会在意对方是否开心，你只会关心自己的需求。

There’s significant stigma around mental illness in Japan, explains Urala, and many people are reluctant to seek professional support. She says she often plays the role of therapist to those who want to talk through negative feelings or have company when they’re down.

在日本，精神疾病的发病率很高，乌拉拉说，但是很多人却不愿意寻求专业的治疗。她说她经常扮演的就是治疗师的角色，她的客户们会将消极的情绪向他们发泄出来。

Of course, the staff at Family Romance can’t help but emotionally respond to their clients. Urala mentions one client who seemed very nervous and repeatedly said she didn’t have any real friends. “I worry about her sometimes,” she says. Family Romance staff aren’t allowed to personally message clients, though, so Urala doesn’t know how she is.

当然，在家庭浪漫上班的员工虽然不能帮助，却的确可以给予自己客户一种反馈。乌拉拉说她有一名客户看上去特别紧张、一直重复说自己没有朋友。“我有时挺担心她的。”她说。家庭浪漫公司禁止员工以个人名义私自给客户发短信，所以乌拉拉也不知道那个妹子现在怎么样了。

Family Romance roles can also involve deceit. In one case, says Urala, a man was pressuring his mistress to get an abortion, and the woman said she would only do so if he apologized to her in front of his father. The man hired an actor from Family Romance to play the role of his father when he met his mistress.

家庭浪漫公司提供的角色扮演也会涉及到欺骗。有一次，乌拉拉说一个男人想让自己的情妇去做流产手术，但是情妇却执意要男子在他父亲面前和自己道歉才去。这个男人就从家庭浪漫公司雇佣了一名男子扮作自己的父亲，再去见他的情妇。

Another woman hired someone to play the role of father to her daughter. The girl has been seeing the actor intermittently for eight years, and she does not know he is not her real father. Urala acknowledges this is dangerous—Family Romance TV advertisements feature the man who plays her father, and she could well find out—but is uncertain about whether it’s immoral. “Sometimes the lie is kind,” she says.

另一名女子雇佣了一个人来扮演自己女儿的父亲。她女儿八年间一直和这名男子间歇性见面，女孩并不知道该男子其实并不是自己的父亲。乌拉拉说出了其中的风险：家庭浪漫公司的电视广告播出了该男子的镜头，女孩很可能会发现真相——但是这是否道德就不得而知了。“有的谎言也许是善意的。”她说。

Spending time with a rented friend made me realize just how difficult it is to define friendship, and how these relationships can vary. There’s no one, neat picture of a healthy friendship, no contract or license or certificate, and no rulebook of how to behave or what to put up with. We simply trust that our friends value us and will be there even when we’re having a bad day. Especially when we’re having a bad day.

和真正的朋友一起度过的时间告诉我，对于真正友谊的定义是何其困难，友谊的种类是何其多样。几乎没有标准健康的友情样子、没有相关的证照、没有标准的行为规范。我们就是单纯的相信，我的朋友会珍视我；当我不开心时会陪着我。友谊的珍贵在困境时尤其明显。

The formal arrangement that comes with Family Romance, the very act of paying, removes this crucial element of trust. You can count on someone showing up, acting friendly, and being a good listener if that is their job. But this certainty eradicates the delicate dance of hope and faith that is true friendship.

家庭浪漫公司提供的正规服务，这种需要花钱才能获得的情感，其实缺乏了友情最为珍贵的信任元素。你可以依赖面前行为友善的倾听者，因为那是他们的工作。但是这却没有了真正友谊带来的希望和信任之光。

No doubt paid companionship can be fun, and even restorative. True friendship, though, is rewarding even when it’s kind of a pain.

花钱雇佣来的陪伴当然可以很好玩，有时也有治愈性。但真正的友谊却是即使身在痛苦中也会有有所收获的。

安娜译