Professional Friend

"What is it that you do, exactly?" she asked, dipping her fork into her salad. First dates always had these same usual questions, but they were important in getting to know someone.

"I'm a friend."

She furrowed her brow. "A friend? No, I meant, what do you do for a living?"

"That's what I do, I'm a professional friend."

She crunched away on the lettuce, considering this information. Her face was clearly confused, so he continued, "I maintain daily correspondence with 54 people all over the world. Some by e-mail, others by phone."

"I'm not sure I get it," she said, a little inaccurately. She was quite sure she didn't get it.

"Well," he began, setting his own fork down, "these people pay me ten dollars a day, five days a week, to talk to them. Some are lonely, others just like my company, I suppose. We talk about their lives, their relationships, I give them advice. That sort of thing. I'm very good at it, you know. I have these great big lists of what they're doing, what they say. I know everything about them."

Her confused face did not change. "Well, do you have any real friends? People that don't pay you?"

This made him chuckle. He said to her, while chuckling, with a bit of food in his mouth, "I don't like to take my work home with me."

She wondered what a relationship with him might mean, how much that might cost.