Article content By Helena Skrinjar In early October, I was paid US$60 to be someone’s friend. Other than jokingly claiming my role in any friendship was priceless, I hadn’t ever thought about how much I was worth. But that day, I found myself in Manhattan’s popular Meatpacking District, outside a trendy hotel, meeting a perfect stranger named Kenneth, whom I met on the RentaFriend.com website. We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser. How do you go about finding a friend during a pandemic? By the hour Back to video It was started in 2009 by entrepreneur Scott Rosenbaum after reading about Japan’s popular “Rent A Family” companies, agencies that rent out people to act as substitute family members.