The art of making new friends

Making new friends is easy if we have an outgoing personality and a few tricks up our sleeve. People may wonder, "What tricks are useful?" It's actually quite simple. If we try to initiate a conversationwith someone and they don't respond, roll their eyes, look away or say "Whatever", then, we're probably barking up the wrong tree. In other words, if any of these things occur, chances are they're probably not interested.

Assuming, however, that the other party/parties is/are interested in making our attempt at a relationship longer than a brief encounter, we must tread carefully, especially if the first meeting is in a public arena (e.g. a restaurant). For example, if two people seem like a cute couple and you happen to be eating a group lunch in a restaurant with them for the first time, don't publicly ask them to sit next to each other and ask the guy to help the girl get food with his chopsticks. This is because if this works (i.e. those 2 people realy do "like" or "love" each other), that's great, but what if they don't? If they don't, that means that we've created a public nuisance because it's entirely possible that no one else is interested in this potential relationship. Creating a public nuisance like that will normally get the look "Are you crazy?" A much better way would be to ask people to seat themselves and observe what happens because then, the thought process becomes "If this works, great", but "If not, this didn't create a scene or embarrassment". Then, if the people we expected to sit together really do sit together, the next appropriate step would be to ask them to meet more privately.