Wanted: a charming plus-one for a cocktail party or wedding.
Sound familiar? It's a regular refrain for single ladies. Sometimes you can rustle up a friend, or find a date. But when that fails, we can now look to options like Rent A Gent, a site that sets you up with a professional platonic date.
No funny business, it claims, just a dependable (and dependably attractive) companion for a few hours.
"We provide a service that's not on the market," Rent A Gent's creative director, Jon, told Business Insider. "It's something different and classy. These are more GQ-type guys."
Unlike the escort options you may be thinking of, the Rent A Gent service is about "empowering women." Rent A Gent prioritizes meaningful conversation, and the service costs $200 an hour.
You may be surprised to hear it isn't the only startup of its kind either. ManServants is a similar service that lets people rent men to wait on them hand and foot, and it costs $125 an hour.
On New York's coldest day of the year so far, I took Rent A Gent for a spin. Our date: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where people flock to find beauty.
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The company, founded three years ago by entrepreneur Sara Shikhman, employs a simple process: They have a listing of available "gents" across many major metropolitan areas in the US, to whom they will match you based on your mutual interests, needs, and availability. Then they'll put you in touch with him, and let everything progress from there.
They have about 150 regular gents across the country, with many hundreds of applicants to sift through. A public voting process helps them choose which ones are worthy of the gig, and each is vetted intensively for quality control. Right now, it's not a huge business; they facilitate a handful of dates a week, with New York and Los Angeles being the most consistent markets.
I had been matched with Aaron, who I knew from the photos on the site would be tall, dark, and handsome. It wasn't hard to find him: Even in the mobbed entrance of the Met Museum, he stood head and shoulders above the crowd.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider