What Price (Imaginary) Love?
Can't buy a girlfriend? Just rent one:
She's the perfect girlfriend - funny, sexy and supportive. She'll cheer you up after a hard day, send you loving text messages and make your life complete. If you dump her, she'll beg to be taken back. There's only one small hiccup - you'll never get to meet her.This is the service promised by 'imaginary girlfriends' on the auction website ebay. Once known for selling collectables and leftovers, ebay has become the world's biggest car boot sale, with 94 million users and 3 million new items for sale every day.
Its massive success has created a subculture trading in bizarre, obscure or even theoretical items - human souls, aircraft carriers and now imaginary companions.
The phenomenon started in November when 'Judy', a 22-year-old Texan student, put herself up for sale 'totally on a whim'. 'It was just a late-night idea,' she says, aimed at men who wanted to claim they had a girlfriend. She already had a long-term boyfriend who 'thought it was kind of weird'. Her first two listings attracted 36,000 viewers and earned her $122. A craze was born.
By January, the trend had spread to the UK. There was 'xEmma Louizex' - '19, blond hair, very sexy and cute... trying to get into the acting/singing business'. She made £67. 'Nikki321' - 'a cute 19-year-old college girl from Berkshire' - got £48. 'Nightnursesara', a 'typical English rose', earned £30 'to fund my degree', although 'she' confessed to me that she was the creation of a married couple. Even the terrifying-sounding 'Wiccan_Pain_Slave' found a bidder willing to pay her a tenner.
One 'working mother, professional dancer and actress' decided that enhanced service was the way to go. One of her proposals was to die tragically in a car crash on the way to meeting you - she'd even place an obituary for you to show your friends.
wonderful idea
I'm willing to sell myself out to you as your
imaginary boyfriend. For a flat 20 dollars here is what you get. Me. Chris Volkay. Variously described as fantastic, terrific, brilliant(and quite frankly)genius writer and thinker. Successful in business, 6'5" 220 pounds of rugged but juicy man meat. I'll even email you a picture. I promise to be just as imaginary as your current boyfriend(women fake orgasms, men fake relationships) When younger I dated models(high school girlfriend) and home coming queens. What more do you want? I'm a bargain at twice the price, but because I like you, I'm giving you a rate. Be the envy of all your imaginary friends. Have a picture to use in conjunction with your Jackhammer Jesus. Twenty bucks...don't hate me for being wonderful.. I just can't help it.
chris at March 1, 2004 8:51 AM
Sounds like a good college job. Maybe I'll do that to earn some extra green while in college. Maybe I can do it now? I succeeded with Randy Swanson, maybe I can pull this off. And with the money, I can take all my friends out to lunch!
Hmmm...what should my username be? "dancingdesperada"?
Cecile at March 2, 2004 10:45 PM
Oh, no...you simply can't, Cecile. Take pity. You'll leave all the boys in little piles of ashes.
Amy Alkon at March 2, 2004 11:17 PM
I don't see what's so great about it. You can't have sex with your imaginary date.
Patrick at March 3, 2004 9:36 AM