What If Your Father Was an Actor Your Mother Had Hired?

Photo credit: Catrin Austin, CC BY 2.0.

If you have ten minutes, you’ll want to read this interview at The Atlantic. Roc Morin talks to 36-year-old Ishii Yuichi, who runs a Japanese company where people can hire other people to fill specific roles in their life, like “boyfriend” or “father.”

Yuichi plays several of these roles himself. He’s been a boyfriend many times, and he’s spent the past eight years playing the role of “father” to a girl who has now graduated from high school:

Morin: Does she understand that you’re not her real father?

Yuichi: No, the mother hasn’t told her.

Morin: How do you think she would feel if she discovered the truth?

Yuichi: I think she would be shocked. If the client never reveals the truth, I must continue the role indefinitely. If the daughter gets married, I have to act as a father in that wedding, and then I have to be the grandfather. So, I always ask every client, “Are you prepared to sustain this lie?” It’s the most significant problem our company has.

Read the whole thing.

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