By 2035, 40 percent of Japan’s population will be living alone. They will wake up alone, make breakfast for one, go to work and come home to an empty apartment. It will be the norm. In fact, households including married couples will decrease by 23 percent according to research, and Japan’s market is gearing up for this shift by creating a variety of services marketed towards lonely people.

Services include professional cuddlers, where you can hire someone to come and simply snuggle with you, stroking your head, patting your back and really just providing platonic physical intimacy. Another service offers a sleeping companion whom clients pay to sleep beside, another non-sexual intimate service. You see the pattern. Other services allow people to rent friends to talk to, old men to get advice from, young boys who will wipe your tears away and even cats for petting and snuggling.

But do these services really help with loneliness? Or are they just adding to the problem?

Loneliness refers to the amount of intimacy a person has compared with amount of intimacy they want, and it isn’t just caused by physical isolation. Scientists have found strong links between genetics and loneliness, but also see loneliness surge conditionally, based on a major life change, like divorce or moving. And however loneliness is brought about, our bodies have a physiological response to it: scientists have found more white blood cells in human bodies who have chronic loneliness, causing the immune system to work in a completely different way, almost an outcry against loneliness. So whats the cure? How can someone mitigate the feelings of loneliness?

The cure is intimacy. And while physical intimacy spurs the creation of hormones—oxytocin, the love hormone is responsible for feelings of deep connection over time, is spurred by physical touch— in the body—emotional intimacy is the true saving grace for the lonely. Developing relationships with people who have similar interests and values is what often pulls people out of loneliness. In fact, emotional isolation is ranked as high a risk factor for mortality as is smoking. 

So, while the services focused around the physical side of intimacy provide a temporary fix, a bit of oxytocin release where the clients normally wouldn’t get it, the Japanese services based around emotional intimacy may be on to something. But in reality, how good can renting a friend actually be for you?