Friends are all around

Fri, Mar 12, 2010 (3 a.m.)

We’ve all heard the rap about living in Las Vegas.

It’s a forlorn, transient place where it’s hard to meet and keep real friends. Because of our high rate of growth before the recession, there are no real neighborhoods to speak of since neighbors don’t bother to meet each other.

Newcomers must beware of gamblers, drunks and con artists. Men and women are players interested in just one thing.

There’s nothing sincere about the people in this insincere city. Since you can’t trust anyone, why even try to make a friend?

These long-standing complaints about our city have once again been highlighted thanks to the emergence of a new service: renting friends online.

Our sister publication, Las Vegas Weekly, reports the Internet business RentAFriend.com has picked up some local customers and that Las Vegans can sign up to earn money as “friends.”

This isn’t a matchmaking or escort service. If you can’t find a real friend in Las Vegas, you can go to RentAFriend.com to rent a platonic one for activities such as going to the movies, eating at restaurants, gambling or attending office parties.

Assuming all the stereotypes about Las Vegas are true, the New Jersey-based RentAFriend business should have great promise here.

But too bad for RentAFriend, those Las Vegas stereotypes are overblown and RentAFriend may have a hard time attracting subscribers with its $24.95-per-month fee.

That $24.95 covers only what it costs to shop for a friend. Once you hire a friend, the friend’s fee is negotiable. In a typical instance, a friend earned $100 for hanging around with a customer for three hours.

Forget the talk about Las Vegas, with all its supposed negatives, breaking the spirit of otherwise healthy individuals and leaving them stuck in their apartments obsessing about their friendless status.

In the real world, every city has its loners. Las Vegas has its share, but even in the bad times our city offers a huge array of opportunities for people looking to meet others with similar interests and aspirations.

Whether you are standing in line in a bank, watching your kid’s soccer match, attending kindergarten orientation with your child or listening to your pastor or rabbi during church or synagogue services, you’ll see there are plenty of “normal” Las Vegans interested in the same things as you.

Chances are you work at a very normal company doing the type of work that is done at similar companies all over the country. And when you go home, a good number of you live in real neighborhoods with real homeowner associations patrolled by real police officers and protected by real firefighters. You can’t get much more normal than that.

Las Vegas is unique in that our main casino industry operates 24 hours per day and brings with it many positives — huge employment numbers and entertainment, dining and retail amenities that are oriented toward tourists but that are enjoyed by locals.

In investigating whether the nature of Las Vegas creates loneliness, and the need to “rent” friends, we checked in with local Kaercher Campbell insurance executive and networking promoter Joel Jarvis.

Jarvis moved here 17 years ago, and since then has built a free networking Web site called the Link Las Vegas (thelinklv.com), which boasts more than 15,000 users.

“The reputation is not deserved,” he said. “What you are hearing are the people who only go to the clubs and complain because they don’t have many friends, or the wrong ones.

“If they really spread their wings and searched for good people, there are tons here. I know many and I didn’t know anyone when I came here, zero! Now I count some of the best people in Las Vegas as my friends,” Jarvis said.

We also talked to public relations executive Reggie Burton, president of Reggie Burton Communications, who has developed close friendships over the years with other parents at flag football games or at parks watching youth baseball.

“I don’t think the reputation is well deserved. From a business and personal point of view, I find there are numerous opportunities to meet people from all walks of life and develop good relationships,” Burton said. “Professionally, networking has always been a way to meet people and often leads to opportunities for socializing outside of work. Additionally, the evolution of social media has made it possible to develop virtual friendships all across the valley. Occasionally these connections lead to chats over coffee or at networking events. Personally, I live in Henderson, which has more parks per capita than any city in the country.”