I'm not a friend or an acquaintance. I'm free of the bothersome things that accompany relationships, but can ease people's sense of loneliness.

Creepy

Not all that different from hiring a psychiatrist. It has never been unusual for people to unload their personal problems on strangers. Unlike friends and acquaintances, there will be no judgment, gossip or blowback. I once had a CNN reporter spill her guts to me about her horrible boyfriend (another reporter) during an hour long train-ride to the airport.

When we parted, she said she felt better for spilling it all out.

I hope he charges his regular fee to all of the people using him to write "zany Japan" stories.

expat,

Yes. Relationships are more than that fragile. Several Japanese friends have told me they had severed relationships with other friends because that other friend did X, Y, or Z where X, Y or Z were, in my perverted western thinking, very minor and one that my best friend back in my home country and I have done many, many times. But, in my Japanese friends' minds it was Unimaginable!! So they stopped seeing that person.

Innovative person.

Sounds like a fascinating, if unusual career. So many lonely people out there. And, of course, so many people who have friends but just need to unload on a stranger sometimes.

Nothing wrong with that. If people will pay and it breaks no laws (would be interesting to see how he declares this in his taxes), I think it's win-win... so long as none of the 'customers' expect more.

Yes. Relationships are more than that fragile. Several Japanese friends have told me they had severed relationships with other friends because that other friend did X, Y, or Z where X, Y or Z were, in my perverted western thinking, very minor and one that my best friend back in my home country and I have done many, many times. But, in my Japanese friends' minds it was Unimaginable!! So they stopped seeing that person.

YEP!! Extremely common here sadly! Surely many posters here hold back on certain things\topics when speaking with Japanese because you KNOW they cant take discussing a particular topic or if you say or do something & they find out they disappear from your life or you are no longer part of some grouping, quickly going from uchi to soto. This is J-ghosting started way before the digital age!

must be nice to get paid to eat and drink with someone and just talk