Making friends is hard. Thinking of things to say, questions to ask. Then you actually have to pretend to care about said new friend's major/boyfriend/cirrhosis. It's stressful.
I suggest a less conventional approach to building your social network. It's tried and true.
Ok, it is seldom tried and even less frequently true, but in a few isolated cases I have managed to form a life-long friendship using these tactics:
1) When you enter a new highschool as a freshman, and you find yourself on the soccer field (at practice or otherwise) the coach (or a passerby) may ask you to choose partners.
Approach the girl standing nearest to you who also looks uncomfortable and dangerously close to tears. She will probably have freckles.
Ask her if she would like to see your Rat Face.
She'll want to. Or at least she will be so taken aback and genuinely creeped out that she will have no choice but to say "yes, please." (The key here is actually having a Rat Face to demonstrate for your new pal. I've perfected my own rodent expression through years of strenuous training. You may find that a different species of animal is more suited to your own facial structure.)
Along with now having a partner to practice headers with you have now made a Friend For Life.
2) Animal face performance art won't work with everyone. Sometime physical assault is the key.
Try this. When its raining outside and you find yourself without an umbrella scan campus for a semi-familiar face. This will be a person with whom you share a general social circle and are on a first-name basis with. You are not, however, good friends. Or friends at all really.
Once you've found the object of your platonic desire you can make your move. It will start to happen very quickly once you've initiated contact. Ask this unsuspecting target if they will give you their umbrella. (Note: not share, you are attempting to appropriate their property.)
Inevitably, you will be refused. Allow them to walk away. Then, with the speed and grace of a rabid gazelle, race up behind them and kick them soundly in the ass. In the ass.
(It is important to stress, at this point, that they will not immediately declare their undying friendship and loyalty to you. Instead they will probably call you a Freak and demand to know just what the hell is WRONG with you anyway. No matter, it is all part of the Master Plan.)
From here on out your new friend will call you a Freak. Every day. Soon enough, everyone else you know will too. Freak will become "Freakface" and you will find yourself regretting your actions. However, there will come day that you find you rather enjoy the nickname.
Eventually, you and your new best friend will have choreographed an entire Freak Dance complete with music and lyrics. You will call them Freakmaster. And you will be friends for life.
Of course, this plan is risky. It has been known to backfire. Not everyone finds round-house kicks to the pants endearing.
3) This last method is most controversial. However, the recipient of this particular trick appointed me as maid of honor at her wedding. I take this to mean we are friends.
When you're on a school bus (this tactic can also be excecuted on any mode of transportation. A greyhound bus. A train. An escalator.) strike up a conversation with your neighbor across the aisle. (If you're on a school bus you will most likely chat about who you hope to get for 6th grade next fall. That sort of thing.)
After a few minutes of conversation, collapse against the window and pretend to have passed out. Mid-sentence. At first, your new friend will be alarmed. She will think you have a serious medical condition. Just as she rises to alert the driver, however, you jolt awake. You continue talking as if nothing at all has occurred.
Repeat above manuever every 5 minutes or so until you have reached your stop. She no longer thinks you have a physical condition. She thinks you are absolutely nuts.
However, she is hooked. The old Feigning Narcolepsy trick works every. damn. time.
So there you have it. It's not so hard to make new friends, as long as you have a few tricks up your sleeve.
I wouldn't recommend attempting any of the above on potential love inerests, however. They tend to have the reverse effect in those cases.
Not that I know from experience.
Leave a comment