The solution to loneliness isn’t fake connections. And I think makes it even worse because fake friends don’t act like real people and make it harder to form real relationships with people who have their own desires and needs and aren’t just sycophants receiving pay.

Taking someone out for a dinner and footing the bill does not require you to be some cassanova. Escort services are a thing and honestly somewhat increasingly normalized. The latest chris hemsworth movie had him using an escort and didn't paint him as weird for it or anything, kind of just seemed like a gym membership or any other service the way it was casually broached (he played a certain healthy/rich/clean cut professional thief/perhaps even autistic character).