RENT COMPANIONS RANT : GREAT GLOBAL ESSAY

ESTEEMED !WOW! FOUNDERS [ - only with, and after expressing great respect for the students of the entire world, let me just name a few : Rabo, Haly, Lakshmi, Juniper, Emaan, Hussain, Salar, Zaeem, Ghazi, Hazeem, Ayaan, Haniya.......

'' Did you all realize, did you all know that you are all disappearing from each other's lives? So, how, may I ask, do you think and plan to build a better world for Humanity?.

Where are those students from India, Israel, Iran, North Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Madagascar, Peru, Malta, the Caribbean............?

THIS AGE OF RENTAL. We live in an era of curated connection. We rent attention through LIKES and COMMENTS. We subscribe to parasocial relationships with influencers who feel like friends but would never recognize us in a crowd.

We pay for therapy because we have no one else to talk to, which isn't a criticism of therapy but an observation about the shrinking of informal support systems.

The hairdresser, the neighbour, a fellow founder, a fellow student you could call at 2 am - we're disappearing from each other's lives.

Technology promised to connect us but, instead, isolated us in ways we're only beginning to understand. We've thousands of ' friends online but no one to help us move house, apartment or a room?'

We can video call anyone, anywhere, but we're lonelier than ever. Studies keep confirming this - social isolation is rising, particularly among young people who have grown up with smartphones as appendages.

The pandemic accelerated what was already happening. We learned we could survive without physical proximity and now we're stuck in that survival mode, unsure how to return to a world that requires us to show up.

So why wouldn't you RENT a companion? Why wouldn't you pay someone to sit across from you at dinner, to laugh at your jokes, to perform the warmth you're not getting anywhere else?

It's transactional but at least it's honest. At least you know what you're getting. There's no ghosting, no wondering if they really like you, no anxiety about being too much or not enough.

You pay, they perform, everyone understands the terms.

This Master Essay continues. The World Students Society thanks Muna Khan, the former instructor of journalism.