My Facebook girlfriend came from Fiverr, an online marketplace where everything costs exactly five US dollars. Want someone to optimise your CV? Five dollars. Want someone to write your name on their cheek in lipstick and photograph it? Five dollars. Want a stranger to say a prayer to a god of your choice? Five dollars, you numbskull.
Fiverr is teeming with fake girlfriends. But what sort did I want? Did I want to remain amicable with my pretend partner, or break up spectacularly (one ad was titled: "I will be your jealous PSYCHO girlfriend for a week")? Did I want a deliberately submissive Asian girlfriend, or someone touting themselves as a "crazy angry Russian"? Someone who would "post the sexiest comments you have ever seen", or someone who didn't care if they had to be my girlfriend or my boyfriend, just so long as they got their five dollars?
