The surreal world of an imaginary girlfriend

In 2003, 5PM Interactive decided to capitalize on love. They created a site called Imaginary Girlfriends.com, through which men could pay to have a make-believe long-distance girlfriend.

Why would anyone want a fake girlfriend?

“There are a number of reasons,” reads the site, “Some guys are tired of being told by friends and family to get a girlfriend. Maybe you would like to make someone else jealous when they see how enamored your new girlfriend is by you. Perhaps you are wondering what it’s like to have a long distance girlfriend?”

Girls between 18 and 28 from all over the United States and Canada have applied to play pretend. The terms of their contract are flexible: they are free to charge however much they desire for their two months session with the stipulation that 5PM, as their agent, would collect a commission from their paychecks.

It’s not prostitution—the girls are paid only to pose as long-distance girlfriends. All they need to do is email their respective boyfriends as per agreement. Some of them offer extras, like chatting, leaving messages on answering machines, and sending handwritten letters. Never is an imaginary girlfriend asked to meet a client in person.

Was it real—did girls really get paid just to write emails? What kind of people would pay for this service? Investigation was necessary, so this reporter went undercover as Anaiis, filled out a profile, set a price on herself ($40) and joined the ranks of the imaginary girlfriends—or as we call them, the IGs.

Within weeks, I had eight men in my hands, all of which offered their reasons for the service immediately. There was everything from a computer programmer who didn’t have enough time to do “the real thing” to a serviceman who wasn’t ready to have the ARMY see him out of the closet.

In the beginning, I had planned to personalize everything for my boyfriends, to give them a memorable experience, and learn something more of them. Then I made the grand error of getting into politics with one of them—he ceased writing to me on the spot. I suppose what they say is true, love and politics just don’t mix, even when the love is pretend.

After that, I started to draft saucy little letters and would copy-paste them to all my boyfriends. They were satisfied and I was satisfied—I didn’t have to read their responses at all. I could just email them my devotion and collect my pay at the end of the run —if they paid me, that is. That aspect of IG was something I still had to verify.

Somewhere between this race to reply and copy-paste came the highlight of my career as an IG—Matt Katz, a columnist for the South Jersey-based Courier Post Online.

Katz was an ethical journalist and wasted no time in telling me that I was media fodder. With the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics weighing on my shoulders, I finally confessed what I was up to.

Unlike most men— who’d been tentative, who’d let Annaiis send whatever she wanted—Katz refused to settle for cute e-greetings and ‘I <3 u’ text messages. He wanted to get to know Anaiis. And so I embarked on a series of philosophical debates, deconstructions of literature, anecdotes of my travels and tales of my childhood. All of it with an occasional side of erotica, of course, for good measure. These e-mails were almost like little dates, dates you could do in pajamas and for which you didn’t have to spend half your salary getting a mani-pedi and Brazilian bikini wax. Our exchanges made me think of the movie I Love Trouble in which two journalists for competing papers fall in love while covering the same story. I remember warning him at some point not to fall in love with me. But love is a funny thing, especially when it’s imaginary. Of course, in typical Moll Flanders fashion, Anaiia found herself developing a crush on her pretend boyfriend—deepest condolences to anyone who was knocked off the computer at Hamilton’s in a rush to check gmails over the past few weekends. And she wasn’t the only one. “Call it pathetic, weird or beautiful,” Katz writes in his column, “somewhere along the line, I fell in love with my imaginary girlfriend.” But if long distance dating is not easy, long distance dating someone you have never met is near impossibility. Like most men with whom I corresponded, Katz was in love with a fantasy. He did not, and probably still does not, believe I am real—perhaps trekking back and forth between Hawaii and Saipan, enjoying physics and proclaiming myself a part of the glitterati of the literati are qualities only obese 45-year-old men possess. Well, guess what, Mr. Katz? I’m real. And you have finally made the news with more than a byline. Now if you want to give this a shot, let me know. Just three more sessions as an IG and I’ll be able to pay the airfare. (Cris Saiki) Read Matt Katz column The Date Line: http://www.courierpostonline.com/columnists/cxka062904a.htm Check out Anaiis’s profile on ImaginaryGirlfriends.com: http://imaginarygirlfriends.com/browse_anaiis.php