When You Have Everything But Friends, Why Not Buy Some?

[randomness]

Richard Kirshenbaum has been getting some attention for his piece Paid Friends: Weary of Genuine Relationships, Rich New Yorkers Hire Stand-Ins

Illustrations by Ivan Brunetti.
Sycophants have existed as long as there have been rich and powerful people, of course. This is a modern version.

A woman on her ex-husband's paid friends:

“When we first started dating, I was annoyed that so many people were always around. But I learned that powerful men all have posses.”

...

“I think many really successful men don’t actually have time for real friends. Their old friends are either resentful or bitter or ask for money, and the new friends are often competitive. In my opinion, very rich men have paid friends as an expensive filter, because they can control them. They love to manipulate everyone.”

...

“Look, let’s be real. If he didn’t have any money, he’d be sitting all alone in his apartment with a container of Häagan-Dazs and a bottle of vodka.”

A guy about his entourage:

“Once you’ve had paid friends who don’t argue with you, it’s actually quite hard to go back to real friends.”

All anecdotal, of course, though it did remind me of the old saying about DC: "If you want a friend in this town, get a dog."

Evidently there are people for whom that plan isn't enough.

Comments

[rmd.livejournal.com]

I read part of that and started to wonder if I was being trolled by the author.

(not that I don't think sycophants and hangers on are a thing - of course they are, but the level of weird details like the brand name-dropping, overly *something* descriptions, and something about the prose just strike me as someone fucking with me by exaggerating/embelishing.)

[frotz.livejournal.com]

Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test covers a bunch of the same ground and is an interesting read.

...and yeah, they all seem to have dogs.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Har. There have been "parasites" since forever.

I'm also amused that it showed up in the New York Observer, which seems to be the magazine for the class of people who have paid friends.

Of the people in the story, there seems to be a shortage of Old Money. But I suppose that old money people have actual friends, people they went to prep school with and an infinite network of old money relatives.

Also, having an entourage in train shows other people that you're rich.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I'm imagining a different version of those cute little pictures, where rich guy Tony Technology has friends like Bruce Biochem, Steve Super-Soldier, Professional Pepper, Just-In-Time JARVIS, [I haven't thought of one for Thor yet, help?], Ninja Natasha, Crafty Clint (knitted arrow cozies!), etc etc etc.