Jan from the Brady Bunch had a fake boyfriend.  What was his name again?  It’s right on the tip of my tongue.  Oh yeah, it was George Glass.  The name glass came to her as she was looking at a glass and that was the first thing to come to her mind, so she went with it.  As I recall, the whole fake boyfriend thing didn’t exactly come out positive for Jan.  She went through a lot of work to set up fake dates, fake phone calls, even fake flowers.  Well, the flowers were real, they weren’t from any boy, though. 

Fast forward about 40 years.  We have smart phones and tablets and crazily enough, we have an app called ‘Invisible Boyfriend’.  Oh, get this, it costs 24.99 per month for you to able to receive 100 texts, 10 voicemails, and one postcard from your invisible boyfriend (or girlfriend).  Who sends postcards anymore?  To me, that would be a dead giveaway.

Either way, the virtual significant other, essentially gives your friends and family the idea that you actually have a partner.  I’m still struggling to actually see the usefulness in this.  It is said that it is so you can live your life on your own terms without feeling pressured from friends and relatives about finding Mr. or Mrs. Right.

Have we, as a society gotten to the point where we feel we need to pay a company to give us the fantasy of having a boyfriend or girlfriend?  Or is it really for people to just leave you alone and let you get on with your life?

When you set up your account, you get to make all of the decisions about what your virtual friend is all about.  If only in real life, huh?  You pick the headshot, the personality, name and age.  I guess that’s one way to find the perfect date.

Aside from the reasons why anyone would actually do this, consider the fact that somebody actually sat down and dreamed this up.  And now they’re getting 24.99 a month from who knows how many people?  Crazy, but call it the “American way”, I guess.

More From 96.1 The Eagle