How to Hire Fake Friends and Family

Money may not be able to buy love, but here in Japan, it can certainly buy the appearance of love -- and appearance, as the dapper Ishii Yuichi insists, is everything.

As a man whose business involves becoming other people, Yuichi would know.

The handsome and charming 36-year-old is on call to be your best friend, your husband, your father, or even a mourner at your funeral. His 8-year-old company, Family Romance, provides professional actors to fill any role in the personal lives of clients.

With a burgeoning staff of 800 or so actors, ranging from infants to the elderly, the organization prides itself on being able to provide a surrogate for almost any conceivable situation.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/11/paying-for-fake-friends-and-family/545060/