There's a new trend happening on eBay: Imaginary Girlfriends . As of this writing, there are about 70 of these posted. Typically, the Imaginary Girlfriend is a real (not Imaginary) young woman who offers to send the buyer E-mail, instant messages, photos, and so forth to pose as the buyer's girlfriend for a few months. 

On the theory that Where There's An eBay Listing There's A Market, I would like to propose Rent-a-Babe.com.

Rent-a-Babe.com is a clearinghouse for Imaginary Girlfriends. Prospective boyfriends pay a fixed fee ($19.95/month?) which lets them peruse the available Imaginary Girlfriends and select one. The Imaginary Girlfriend gets a percentage, and can have more than one Imaginary Boyfriend at a time, if she's got the time and energy to keep up with more than one. The Imaginary Boyfriend can terminate the Imaginary Relationship at any time and select another Imaginary Girlfriend. For those guys interested in Imaginary Polygamy, two Imaginary Girlfriends would be $29.95/month, and three would be $39.95/month. Catfights and jealous rages could also be arranged through IM and E-mail.

Of course, there would have to be some ground rules:

* Imaginary Girlfriends would be encouraged (perhaps required) to use a fake name, to avoid stalking, harassment, etc.

* Contact outside of IM and E-mail is strongly discouraged. Of course, you can't rule out a real relationship developing from an Imaginary one, but we don't want to blur the boundaries any more than necessary.

* An Imaginary Girlfriend has the right to refuse any prospective Imaginary Relationship for any reason. She also has the right to terminate an Imaginary Relationship at any time.

As an aside....the sociological implications of this kind of business are fascinating. For example, if Imaginary Relationships start turning into real ones, would this morph into an odd sort of online dating service? How thin are the boundaries between role-playing and reality?