If there are two things I remember about my high school guidance counselor, the first was her astounding ineptitude and inability to answer routine questions regarding the high school microcosm. The second was her answer to one of those questions, something she told me about making friends that, in hindsight, reveals the full extent of her cluelessness. It was freshman year, and all my friends from middle school were too busy ingratiating themselves with the likes of Jess Biegelson and Dave Frank to remember that, excuse me, hell-lo???, we used to be friends. Cliques were forming, and I they were kind of leaving me out. I didn't have a therapist back then, and my parents are about as helpful in these matters as a fortune cookie, and I figured my guidance counselor was supposed to be some sort of advisor.

So I went to her, I told her that I was having trouble making friends and everybody else already settled comfortably into their little groups. Here's what she said to me; I still remember her exact words. "Well, I know that even if I already had a group of friends, if another person wanted to be my friend, I would be friends with them."

Okay, even at the time, that statement wasn't particularly helpful. I only realize just how out of touch my guidance counselor was now, after experiments with the high school Harry Potter misfits, the band geeks, the suitemates freshman year of college, the film students, the Asian Hum students, the creative writing students, and the neuro‑neighbors. It's not a big mystery; what I really don't understand is why nobody just bothered to tell me how to make friends.

So, for the benefit of all you loners out there, I'll tell you how it's done.

• Step 1: Find another person. This is critical, because no matter how much you try, your pet or XBox or doll collection will never make quite as satisfying a friend as another person. I'm telling you that from experience.
• Step 2: Interact with that other person. This is the hard part. You might need to make some excuses here.
• Step 3: Repeat step 2. A lot. Correction: this is the hard part, especially once you run out of excuses.

Point is, making friends is, at least conceptually, nothing enigmatic. Just hang out with someone long enough for him or her to succumb to your winning personality.