No friends, how about hiring one online? Maybe you have never heard of this before but there is such a thing as a professional friend (there are also professional listeners, online and face to face agony aunts etc). The purpose of an online friend is to be there to email back and forth, skype, zoom or whatever in return for payment.
It's a great idea if both are fair to the other about it. You will get problems if you get too friendly with a client and the client starts to try to phone you or email you without payment etc. But this can happen with many businesses, services and jobs, it is up to you to use your common sense and not let this happen. You must protect yourself from people who would try to take advantage of your good nature if they feel you are too generous with your time or don't have boundaries where you ought to.
How does it work? If you want to pay a professional friend go to the website, read all about the various people offering and hire one.
If you want to be a professional friend – which means you are friendly, chatty, smart, out going, reliable etc. You list yourself on the directory so that anyone seeking a professional friend can find you and hire you and pay you. Of course you must make your directory listing interesting and make yourself sound better or more interesting and more fun than the others. This is where some people fail. It is no good just putting your name is John and you would like more customers. The potential customer needs to have an idea of what John is like and to feel sure that it is money well spent to hire him.
Because we are speaking about a professional friend who is online it would be by email, zoom or skype. But there are professional friends who hire themselves out online to meet up too. No reason at all why you cannot do this if you are willing to. I read recently about a professional friend who hired himself out to a client who was very much into train engines and enjoyed talking about them for hours. It was an obsession. He could not get anyone he knew to listen to all this so he hired this professional. It is the professional's job then to pretend to be interested if necessary, to ask questions, really listen, not try to change the subject or show how bored they are the way their family or real friends might. Some people are so obsessed with a subject or so shy and quiet that they cannot make friends at all so you might be their one and only friend. This puts the onus on you to be a really good friend. But it does not mean that you forget this is work and you should always be paid.
I always suggest that for an email friend you make sure they pay first before you even bother to read their email. Otherwise you could easily end up with a long rambly email going on and on about how lonely they are and they will get a tremendous amount of satisfaction out of knowing you read it – especially if you read it free of charge. There are customers who try the but surely we are friends now routine and try to get free services and it is up to you to make sure this does not happen. Some would lie in an effort to save money.
I work as a professional agony aunt and psychic and get this all the time! I used to allow people to contact me at my email address direct but the result was loads of emails arriving saying the could not afford to consult me so please can it be free and so on. Plus loads of spam. People trying to appeal to your better nature and stupidity and take advantage. You could waste a lot of time on that. So be diligent and sensible. Thankfully psychics are more sensible than that, unless they are fakes maybe.
If you decide you want to improve your wealth and be busier by working as a professional friend then you might also find you need to be selective about the type of people you take on. I would always advice a very young woman to beware of old men who say they want to hire her as a friend. The odds are they are really after sex, but much cheaper than they would normally have to pay someone who sells sex.
Think of it in the same way you would if you were in the big wide world and meeting people here and there. You will meet some liars, some users, some fools and some nice normal fair people. It is the same online. If interested in working as a professional friend go to this website ask agony aunts advice. Find out all about it. You would be self employed so all of the money you earn is yours, it is not a job where you work for whoever other than the individual clients. You set your charges, you set your rules. You can get even more if you are a tarot card reader or psychic. See the site for more. ask agony aunts advice online dot com.
