Wavebreakmedia Ltd
Despite the glut of porn, sex and escort services available online, geeks with inadequate social skills have discovered that a void remains: a girlfriend.
Since affection from an actual girl is sometimes out of reach for this cohort, web entrepreneur Cody Krecicki has set up GirlfriendHire.com to fill a niche.
For just five bucks, insecure guys can pay a woman to send a racy text, post something suggestive on Facebook, give fashion advice and perform other "girlfriend services" – even up to doing a guy's homework, Buzzfeed reports.
Modelled after the online marketplace Fiverr, GirlfriendHire promises to help lonely guys PayPal their image problems away.
Meanwhile, it empowers women, according to Mr. Krecicki, a 22-year-old student at Edison State College in Naples, Fla. He describes the website as a way "for girls to be their own bosses and guys to have something fun – a tool to use, if you want to call it that."
Sadly, it's not the first "tool" of its kind.
Launched last year, Fakegirlfriend.co ("Because you don't want to look lame") allows users to buy a phone number for a pseudo squeeze and select personalized "girlfriend-esque responses" to be sent back, The Globe and Mail reported.
Another site, cloudgirlfriend.com, bills itself as "a real long-distance girlfriend, without the hassles."
Unlike the competition, however, GirlfriendHire presumably involves a lot of interacting with a real woman (one who clearly doesn't value her time if she's willing to do someone else's homework for a measly five bucks).
On the site, SweetEmma offers to send the purchaser hot photos of herself "so that you can show me off to your friends as your girlfriend."
LilithX, a self-described fetish expert, offers to teach "all of the words and safety techniques needed to have a fun sexy kinky time."
The site is barely in the startup phase. But whether or not it gains traffic, GirlfriendHire underlines the obvious: Creepy guys who pay for virtual romance aren't going to score with a real woman any time soon.
Are girlfriend-for-hire sites a clever service – or just sad?