Making friends is hard

            When you were younger, making friends was easy. You simply had to ask them to play a game or the opposite, join in on theirs. Yet, sometimes it wasn't that easy. It could be challenging since there was a slight chance you could be rejected. But a quick tattle to the teacher and a distraction of another child's game was all you needed to brush it off. There were at least forty-eight other children in your classroom, depending on the school of course, and with those numbers, there was bound to be someone who was going to engage with you. Back then, it was effortless. It happened naturally and without much thought. However, now that you are older, it has become trickier, and don't try to convince me otherwise.

            For many, making new friends can easily be compared to dating. You have to put yourself out there even to have the opportunity to make new connections. That means going to parties when you really want to sit at home binging on ice cream from the pint, going out to a bar even though that means spending money you know you really shouldn't or going to the dog park even though you have a dog who is anti-social because you have confused it by treating it more like a human and less like a dog, but I'll touch on that later. Some would say going to the gym is a great place to make new friends. However, I don't think so. God forbid your gym friendship doesn't work out; no pun intended. In that situation, you have three options, find a new gym, figure out their schedule to make sure you avoid them or perfect your gym nod because if you do see them, you'll be obligated to give them some kind of acknowledgment.

            Getting out there is just the first step and probably the easiest one, but sparking a conversation is the next, and unlike dating, a pick-up line won't cut it. I'm still perfecting this step myself. Some would say my technique is more abnormal than most.  For example, I once asked a girl if I could lick her eyeball… I don't know where that came from; it must have been a beginning of a joke that I never finished. But it worked; we ended up being best friends in high school, and no, I never actually licked her eyeball. But that was the past, and this is now. Today, as a 26-year-old, it seems like many people get off-put by someone trying to spark even the slightest conversation, and then it's like, well, where do you go from there?

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