"A 'friend' said he wanted to go swimming at the beach," says John of another client. "I thought that sounded fun. And it was fun, at first. Then he pretended to drown."

Like, this is a bit he does? To break the ice? "I freaked out, and me and another man pulled him out. He looked dead, and the man who helped him out started calling 911. Then my 'friend' said, 'Gotcha!' and started laughing and went back into the ocean. The man who helped said, 'What the fuck is his problem?!' I told him I didn't know, because I didn't."

It's sad when you meet someone who seems fundamentally incapable of reading a room, but you have to admire the dedication. "Later he pretended to fall asleep at the wheel when there was an awkward pause in the conversation. He acted like it wasn't a big deal and gave me a perfect score, but I told the admin [of the rental service] that I didn't want to see him again."

"I had a private investigator hire me so that he would have a 'friend' to talk to on a stakeout. We were literally parked outside an apartment building all night because he hated to be alone ... He actually told me that he used to go on his tablet and go on the internet, but he missed having someone to talk to. So that's what happened. He picked me up, and he talked to me for several hours about this and that. He obviously needed to get some things off his chest."

Well, that's nice ...

"But then he said he felt scared sometimes while on stakeouts, so that was another layer ... he told me, man-to-man, that he wanted someone else in the car in case something happened. He specifically said, 'So someone can call my mom for me if I get hurt.'"

Here's where a cynical person could say that the guy just didn't want to sacrifice one of his actual friends, should things go south. "And since we were watching the house of someone deep in debt for some company, it got me wondering whether this situation could get violent, and if that's why he needed someone else. I kept thinking we'd be killed that entire night."

"A 'friend' I was matched with had tickets to a beer festival ... As soon as we met, he started talking about how his business had gone bankrupt and he didn't know what to do. It killed any good feelings I had. He was in a business I knew nothing about, and he kept explaining parts of it to me. It required a lot of importing from China, and he knew all the laws and procedures."

Here's where you get a crash course on how to be a good listener. Step 1: Be there and listen while the person talks. Step 2: Don't worry about Step 2, since most people can't manage the first one.

"He had been in a dark mood, but as we talked about it, he would say, 'Wait, I could do this,' and start writing something down. My ignorance on his work made him go through what he was doing. By the time the festival was closing, we were both drunk, but he had scribbled down plans to make a new company."

John looked the guy up later. It at least appeared that he'd followed up on his plan. He hadn't needed somebody to give advice, or reassure him, or impart knowledge. He literally just needed a working pair of ears. "Other times," says John, "it becomes a confessional, them outpouring all their anxiety and fears and everything. Like half are about being worried about the future ... When I get these, I always know what's coming. It will be drinking and outpouring after a few."

Another time he got matched with a woman for an afternoon, and it turned out she was going to have to give up the pet dog she was struggling to care for. She had to make a gut-wrenching decision, and just wanted someone to be there when she did it. John had to watch her pack up this sad dog and drive it to the shelter.

These are the hard things that can't be done over Snapchat, the low points in life when, above all else, we just need someone to be there. Paying for such a service is less than ideal (some of you probably think it's downright dystopian), but considering how many of John's clients became real unpaid friends later -- about 30 of them, by his count -- maybe this is just the way it is now. There are definitely worse things to spend money on.

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