Who Says Money Can’s Buy Pals?
In earlier eras, people met new pals at taverns, the town square, grocery markets, churches. Or even at that old standby, the office.
But in the busy ‘90s, an entrepreneurial San Jose couple hope to popularize a high-tech way to make friends: by paid membership in a computer listing service.
Is the world ready for the Buddy Brokers, the first clearinghouse for pals?
Kate and Dane Teague, two Silicon Valley professionals, think so. They believe busy Bay Area folks are so famished for good friends that they will pay to find them.
For an initial $50 fee, Buddy Brokers clients will get a list of 25 other subscribers of the same sex. If all goes well, lifelong friendships will grow in the same way romances blossom through dating services.
“There are a lot of wonderful, incredible people out there,” says 37-year-old Dane Teague, “but they need help finding each other.”
The hectic, mobile life styles of modern working people make it hard to form lasting friendships, the Teagues say.
In Silicon Valley, the nature of the high-tech industry--long hours, market competitiveness, an obsession with research and technology--makes it even tougher to develop close friends, the Teagues say.
They know the feeling themselves. After moving from Ventura County to San Jose four years ago, they realized most of their close friends lived outside the Bay Area.
When 33-year-old Kate Teague got pregnant with her son and left her marketing job at Coherent Inc. in Palo Alto, she found it even harder to make friends. “I felt like a social reject,” she says.
Last spring, she placed a personal ad in a small weekly newspaper, hoping to meet other “intelligent and opinionated” women. More than 30 women answered the ad.
Meantime, Dane Teague, an executive at Computer Products Inc. in Fremont, realized that he missed playing jazz with his college buddies. He placed a classified ad, getting a huge response from other men.
Quicker than you can say, “How’s it going, big guy?” Buddy Brokers was born.
So far, dozens of people have signed up for the service. But many more appear to have doubts about Buddy Brokers, as indicated by audience response to it on a recent San Francisco television talk show.
“How can you buy friendship?” asked one caller to KPIX’s “People Are Talking” program. “This is like running out of toothpaste and buying more at the drugstore.” Another caller asked: “Why would a person be desperate enough to place an ad to make friends?”
“This isn’t a lonely-hearts club,” Kate Teague says. “We’re all active people who work, go to school, have tons of friends out of the area. This is just an introduction to new people.”
Friends are vital, two guest therapists on the program agreed. “We want roots, a sense of connectedness, in our friendships,” said Jared Wilkinson, a Santa Cruz psychotherapist. “People are hungry for friends, and they’re not finding them for some reason.”
Thelma Peck, a social worker at First Hospital in Vallejo, Calif., added: “People want intimacy and that’s a scary business, to have people see us as we see ourselves.”
Anne Robel is a satisfied Buddy Brokers client. A 35-year-old student who had trouble making friends after moving from Marina del Rey to San Jose when her husband landed a new job three years ago, she tried the service after tiring of the giggly young students in her classes. The stigma of advertising for friends did slow her a bit.
“My husband looked at me like I was crazy when I told him about it,” she says, laughing. “I thought something was wrong with me; I wondered if I had lost my ability to make friends.”
When Robel called Kate Teague, the chemistry was immediate: “There was no pretense,” says Robel. “We connected instantly.” Now they are buddies, meeting often for lunch, shopping trips and long chats.
The Teagues hope to bring Buddy Brokers to Los Angeles and other cities soon. And they plan to sell their service to corporations. Scores of workers, they contend, reject job offers elsewhere, partly because they’re afraid they won’t make new chums.
“We’re so transient and busy,” says Kate Teague. “We’re always working or cleaning house or spending time with our families. There’s never time for making friends. It’s a skill that’ easy to forget.”
trio
