You will not pull a mother figure or an amazing first cousin or a roomful of lifelong girlfriends out of thin air. Most people don’t have these things, actually. We have to fucking make it work instead.

The more you try — without skyrocketing expectations, without circular thoughts that say YOU ARE A FRIENDLESS FREAK — the easier it’ll be. The more you do it, the happier you’ll be, even if no lifelong friends emerge immediately. You should do it now in order to prepare you for doing it 20 years from now, because you’ll ALWAYS have to do it. You don’t just get the big group of buddies and then sleepwalk through the rest of your life. Life isn’t like that.