Chinese Shopping Mall Offers Share-A-Boyfriend Service for the Holidays

These days, people in China aren’t just sharing rides, bikes, and umbrellas; women have started sharing their “boyfriends” as well.

Inspired by the growing sharing industry in the country, budding entrepreneur Stacy Tian and her colleagues created a service that they claim would help single women celebrate Christmas.

“We’ve entered an era of single women. There are so many single women in China,” Tian told MailOnline. “In addition, most of our customers are female, so we wanted to ensure they would have someone to spend Christmas with.”

Made available on December 24 and 25 from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. at a shopping mall in Haikou, China, the service was reportedly a hit, attracting hundreds of women all vying to avail themselves of a temporary boyfriend.

“We didn’t expect such good results,” Tian said.

The six bachelors, all measuring at least 6 feet in height, were placed on display via neon-lit boxes during the two-day offering. The rentable boyfriends are all employees of the shopping mall and were carefully selected due to their good looks.

“Our requirements were single, mainly the appearance and height. [They] must be six feet tall,” Shi Guoshan, the mall’s event planning manager was quoted as saying.

A handsome date can be rented for just one yuan (15 cents) per hour. Customers can grab a boyfriend just by scanning a QR code outside their respective box. Only one man can be hired per customer, who can spend time with the boyfriend for up to one hour inside the shopping mall. Excessive physical contact between the couple was reportedly not permitted.

One satisfied customer told a local news platform that a friend recommended the service to her.

“I heard the man could accompany me to do shopping and take pictures,” the anonymous girl revealed. “Today is Christmas. I could take advantage of the service and show off our romance among my Friends Circle (a feature within the WeChat app).”