Guide to Making Friends and Keeping Them
On this site, we have instructed you how to understand those of the opposite sex, how to understand yourself, how to seduce people, how to make good first impressions, and how to get the sex, among other boldly helpful things. So, I would imagine that our readers are charming, well-sexed, and the envy of all their peers. Good for you! However, it has recently come to my attention that you are all actually probably quite lonely when it comes down to it. Manipulating people into lusting after you can only be fulfilling for so long. One day, you will wake up and wonder why you feel so cold and alone. I will tell you why. It is because we haven’t yet told you how to make friends.
Why do you find that I am the one writing this article? What would a crazy shut-in like me know about making or maintaining friends? Well, kids, once upon a time, I WASN’T a crazy shut-in. I was actually a fairly outgoing child until about age seven, which is when I began to loathe other people. Luckily for me, though, my first few years of school were used in socializing and I made two friends who are still my best friends to this very day. And I actually have far more friends than JUST those two! That’s pretty impressive, if you ask me. I must be doing something right, and I am here to share with you all the secrets of my overwhelming and slightly frightening success!
Friends are the cinder blocks which are used to build the sturdy foundation of your House of Personal Satisfaction. Without that foundation, your happiness is flimsy and will be unable to withstand even the peaceful breeze of Mild Setbacks. Without friends to turn to, you become a sorrowful shell of bitterness. Even the near-constant sexing that you have learned how to obtain through applying what you’ve learned from our article on the matter will not fulfill you in the ways you expected. It is because human beings NEED other human beings to be there for them, not to use, but to understand and accept them. Well, I guess that is a type of using, actually. But it isn’t as bad as it sounds. Believe it or not, it is important that we have at least one other person in our lives who we can confide in, spend time with, and even be seen with in public — WITHOUT ulterior motives. Sure, you may need to borrow some money from them someday, but essentially a friend is to be treated like a family member who you actually “love.” No, no. Not that dirty physical love you are all so obsessed with, but the “platonic” kind of love.
Firstly, Figure Out What Kinds of Friends You Are Looking For
Some of the more lumpen of you may now be asking such things as “Friends? What are these friends you keep speaking of? You mean those people on the teevee box?” Or you may be saying “I have heard of people having friends, but I don’t think I am capable of having any for myself. It is just a distant dream.” And all of you are saying collectively, constantly, “Oh, Amanda. Please, won’t you help us?” The answers to all of these things is a resounding YES – even the questions which were not answerable on a yes/no basis — at least not CONVENTIONALLY.
Well... hey, it's up to you who you want to be your friends. Just don't expect me to get anywhere near you.
I probably should have clarified this earlier on in the article, but live and learn, right? I know that some of you are unfamiliar with the concept so I will tell you now: friends are people you can depend on, hang out with, share you feelings with, and all of that stuff. And for those of you antisocial fucks unfamiliar with the term “people” – they are those things outside that walk around on two legs and look kind of like you. You want them. Everyone does.
At first, you might be eager to settle for anything you can get. Some of you might be so desperate that the attentions from a few displaced hobos might seem to be a good thing to you. Indeed, hobos might be good practice for the more hopeless of you. Do not try to befriend them as much as simply try practicing your first attempts at conversation and sharing of interests on them. You may then move on to other social misfits such as the lonely, mildly retarded man in your apartment building, the organ player at your friend’s church, or any person over the age of 75. As time wears on, however, you will find that you might want to be able to find people you can depend on who are not there to use or exploit you or try your patience.
Become Interesting, You Boring Old Bastards
I hope you didn’t wander into this article thinking that you would instantly obtain friends. Maybe you thought that just by reading these words, you would instantly attract new people you would like to count as a member of your “posse.” But nothing in this life ever comes easy, chumps. And anyone who tells you that it IS easy, is lying to achieve their own personal gain. Theoretically you COULD make friends with a half-assed effort, but then you would only have half-assed friends. And those aren’t really friends at all. Hopefully, you will be able to avoid these monsters, but most likely, Bad Friends is a topic for another article on another day.
Try harder
Almost everyone here probably is interesting in some way, shape, or form. Intelligent conversation appeals to many people, and if certain people shy away from intelligence, they will usually prefer ignorant and harmless opinions on anything they have to offer. If you are a person who does not possess the gift of being able to carry a conversation that would interest any normal person, you might want to get a hobby.
Hobbies are basically interests that you pick up simply to pass your time in a way that you find appealing. They are also picked up so that a person has something to talk about in moments of a conversation where things are starting to drag and the person is making a last-ditch effort to salvage that horrible train wreck in the making. Be careful, though. Hobbies can be used to make friends, or to drive prospective friends far, far away. Not everyone is interested in stamp collecting, taxidermy, the obsessive collecting of potato chips that resemble other things, knitting, or literally thousands of more things I can’t even possibly begin to think of at a time like this. Pro-tip: only begin the discussion of your personal hobbies when you have asked the other person what THEIR hobbies are.
If you don’t already have a hobby, there is no time like the present to get one. Just peruse a list and pick an interest that either you like, or that people you like seem to like. You can’t possibly lose in that way. Those cool people over there turn out to like fencing? It is pretty easy to pay a fee to join their club. Within a few weeks you’re certain to be their friend simply because they can’t make you leave. If they are resistant, you’ll wear them down. Or you won’t HAVE to wear them down once you’ve begun using all of my suggestions in your day to day life! READ ON!
Wash Yourself and Dress Well
Oftentimes in these instructional self-improvement guides, you come across items that the Everyday Joe or the Ordinary Josie might scoff at because he or she thinks that the item in question is so obvious that it should never, ever be listed. Well, the Everyday Joe and the Ordinary Josie are optimistic fools! There are always people out there who don’t have Common Sense or even Basic Instincts concerning many things in life. If you don’t think the simple act of bathing is frequently ignored, then I want you to go out among the normal people and breathe deeply. Take a city bus if you have to. There are a bunch of stinky freaks on the planet.
All of them are lonely.
And rightly so. Most decent people don’t really want to be associated with a nasty person who has greasy hair and sweaty pits. You see, when people make friends with you, they are also deciding whether or not they’d let their current friends ever even meet you. The exception to the stinky, unwashed rule, of course, is the vile Hippie. If you want to get in with those tie-dyed, dreadlocked, stench monsters, then by all means skip over this section altogether. If you followed even the simplest acts of human cleanliness, they would suspect you of being a NARC or otherwise linked with “the Man,” and fat chance ever befriending one of those people if you have the stink of “the Man” on you. And at this point, when I say “the Man” I mostly just mean “soap.”
Quick! Develop a Charming Personality!
I see a few confused little faces out there. You were thinking that getting a hobby and “becoming more interesting” essentially meant that you were developing a personality, weren’t you? Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you that you are very, very wrong. All the hobbies in the world won’t give you a personality, and even if you regularly find yourself running with the bulls, scoring the winning touchdown, walking on the Moon, and inventing microscopic clowns, if you have no personality, no one will really care about you for long.
This man will probably need work in the charm department
You see, having a personality is key in making people like you or dislike you. Don’t go developing a truly shitty personality. You don’t want to be needy, desperate, clingy, self-centered, psychopathic, disgusting, or any other of those negative words. No! You need to be charming, confident, witty, mysterious, and charming. Did I say charming twice? That’s because it is SO IMPORTANT. If you can charm a person with charms, they will be intrigued by you and not want to pass up the chance to become associated with you.
But how do you become charming? First, get yourself a mirror. Look at yourself in the eyes and smile. Notice anything wrong? I will assume you’ve already brushed your teeth, after following the advice in the previous section, so it’s not that you have a Frito caught in your gap. I’d wager that what you see that’s so wrong is a lack of confidence in yourself, and a big big lack of practice. Yes, once again, you must practice. You must look yourself in the eye and smile until you don’t make yourself uncomfortable because you feel as if you are leering at yourself. You must smile until it comes naturally. You must look yourself in the eye until you notice that you positively SPARKLE with charms. You must practice this charm until you become disappointed that there isn’t another version of you that you could befriend, because god damn it, you are one charming motherfucker.
After you’ve discovered your charming side, you must be able to back up people’s interest in you by being a good conversationalist. Well, actually, you can go without that just as long as you can fake it well enough. Let the other people do the talking. You can win a million bonus points if you ask them about themselves in a way that makes it seem as though you are truly interested and that they are, indeed, the neatest people alive. Encourage them to tell anecdotes and follow them up with relevant questions. They will be so flattered that a person is showing any kind of interest in them that it will take literally months before they might consider that you were tricking them, and by then you will be so ingrained into their lives that it will be next to impossible to get rid of you. Good work!
I Know This Will Be Hard, But Try To Become Less Creepy Overall
I have spoken to many strangers on the Internet and I can say without hesitation that most of you are creepy and disturbing in ways that I cannot even begin to describe. You need to stop doing that if you want to make real friends. I’m not even sure if you do it on purpose or if it is in your very natures, but please – just stop it, okay?
Don't expect too many people to warm up to you looking like this. Unless you are looking for silenced gasps and general looks of pitiful horror.
The first step in becoming less creepy is, if you catch something that you think is a little dirty, don’t point it out. You can think it to yourself all you want, but if you mention it to a new potential friend, you might be giving them the creepies and they’ll start thinking of how they can get away from you the fastest. For example, when you read this subheading, if you thought to yourself “Hur hur.. It’ll be hard all right… hur hur hur,” then you are sick and wrong. However, if you actually chuckled OUT LOUD and grinned like an old child molester, then you need to reform yourself at once! Do not hesitate to punch yourself in the neck everytime you utter such vile thoughts aloud. Eventually, you’ll have conditioned yourself to not be so horrible, and you will be able to go out among people once more.
When you are first speaking with a person, don’t unload your entire life story all at once on them. Strangers don’t want to know how sorrowful you are. They don’t want to get roped into lengthy conversations about your family members, or your uncommon sores that have the doctors baffled. Upon first meeting, almost everyone wants a somewhat upbeat conversation. If a friendship starts happy, then maybe it will stay happy. But if a friendship starts on a detail of self-pity, well… the friendship probably won’t start. Most likely, that person will sit there and listen, and then afterwards, they will go to their real friends and say, “My god, I met the most wretched lump of a person today.” You will be mocked, and they won’t care.
And for god’s sake, if you have a good first conversation, and things are looking up, and your potential new friend seems like they wouldn’t mind talking to you again someday, do NOT become desperately clingy. It is not a good idea to be honest and come clean and tell them that they are the first person you’ve ever identified with. That you are so lonely and need a friend and that you are so glad that you and that person are getting along because you really, REALLY want to be friends with them FOREVER. Don’t offer them your phone number just then, don’t tell them that you’ll get them a gift. Just don’t. In most normal people’s heads, when a stranger comes out with all of these confessions, a warning siren goes off. It is loud and red and flashes, and a voice says “WARNING! This is a crazy, clingy bastard. If you don’t proceed with caution, you will never EVER get a moment’s peace again. FLEE!” People usually listen to the warning voices in their heads. As soon as they can get away, you will never have a chance to connect with that person again. And it will be all because you are creepy.
Above All: BE YOURSELF
This is my final bit of advice. When people are open to getting new friends, they are usually seeking people who don’t have Issues or Emotional Baggage. They are looking for people who are not embarrassing to be seen with. They are looking for people who are beneficial to their lives, really. They want REAL people. So, only approach them after you’ve changed everything about yourself and have buried the memory of the Original You deep, deep within yourself. After you’ve repressed your shame, you will believe that this New You is in fact the Real You. And they will never be the wiser.
If this man is being himself, you should probably just run now
Of course, there is a possibility that not ALL of the old photographs have been destroyed. Maybe one day you and your new friends will run into an old school bully of yours. Perhaps you’ll be DISCOVERED for who you used to be! That is why you must have a back up plan fully prepared for this moment. Have a cleverly concocted, and believable, lie at the ready. Once you can lie directly to the face of your past, you will truly be free from yourself. Your new honest friends might not approve of this, but why would they ever know your dark secrets? You are just using them for lighter secrets and gossip, after all.
However, I must also advise you to be constantly vigilant. Groups of friends have a certain horrible Group Politic that goes with them. There are in-fights and so and so is not speaking to what’s his face because he did whatever that one time. You have to choose sides. Or, maybe it’s your turn to be on the outs with everyone. Perhaps you made a social blunder. Maybe you slept with Nikki’s boyfriend when she asked you to please refrain from being a whore. You’ll have to learn how to manipulate your way back into their good graces. Or, better yet, you’ll have to be able to read their minds so that you will be able to circumvent their scorn before they are even fully aware of it themselves.
If All Else Fails, Take Comfort In The Fact That They Are All Unworthy Cocksuckers Anyway
I want you to sit down in the Thinking Room you have in your house. Relax with some fine wine and a crackling fire in the place for there to be a fire. Sit down and consider what exactly you are looking for in a friend. I know that this is somewhat advanced friend stuff here, but bear with me. You will find that if you are selective about who you befriend, the relationships are rich and rewarding and last years. When you go into that great big FriendMart known as THE WORLD that I spoke of earlier, you may be overwhelmed to find that the shelves aren’t actually stocked in neat categories, or at all! There will be people milling around who might want to con you into sorrowful times where you are just as lonely AND several thousand dollars poorer. Being selective should shield you from many disappointments. And there ARE many disappointments.
They're all worthless anyway. Fuck em'. Fuck em' right up the ass
This article is all about fooling yourself and fooling others. Sometimes, it seems like that’s all the world’s about. But this section is very important, because it may be that you can’t figure out how to make friends. Maybe you have too far to go and are impatient. You have failed too many times, and you can’t afford to move to a new city in order to start over. That’s when it becomes okay to sneer at everyone and consider yourself lucky to be such a loner. Who needs those stinking bastards anyway? If they don’t like you then what’s to like about them? Right?
The irony is that, very often, when you become contented with your isolation, and pleased with yourself for who you are, people will start noticing you and thinking you are neat. If you reject them when they start talking to you, they’ll try harder to befriend you. They’ll want to know what’s so great about you that you can turn them away. It will become a competition where many people will try to get close to you and be one of those rare people you choose confide in. It works especially well if you aren’t a total dick about it and are just quietly alone in a happy way. If you seem happy being alone, then they’ll DEMAND your friendship.
Because people are fickle monsters hell-bent on making you unhappy.
Good luck, readers. You’ll need it.
