Make people like you in 12 easy steps!

Sometimes you just want people to like you. This isn't an odd desire. So here is an easy to follow outline of some steps that you can take to become the newer, more popular you.

These steps are the most effective with complete strangers.

1) People love it when you call them at six in the morning. Not only is everyone awake by this time, regardless of time zones, but up and out of bed as well. Classes rarely start until at least eight and work never begins until nine. Because everyone works nine to five. So the morning is almost always unhurried and unstressed, making six the perfect time for a friendly chat.

2) Another great tip is to only talk about yourself. They know their own life. Why would they need to talk about it? When they try to interrupt with their own stories, it is merely an attempt at politeness. What they really want to do is hear about you and only you, day in and day out. After all, how can they bask in the glory of someone that they don’t know every little thing about? No one is ever interested in their own stories, friends, troubles, celebrations, or drama.They don’t actually want you to listen to them.

3) There might be those “five love languages”. You know, how different people show love in different ways. But whatever they say, everyone likes physical contact from complete strangers. Playing with and tangling hair, boisterous, unexpected hugs, rubbing on them with your face like a cute animal, and shoving them into walls when they've said something funny are things that make all people feel loved. They always enjoy your invasion of their personal space, and it never makes anyone feel awkward.

4) Always use the same tone of voice for your sarcasm as your serious statements. Be sure there is no variation at all. It’s like a mystery puzzle. Did they really say that incredibly rude and offensive comment, or were they joking around? The world may never know. It throws a little bit of adventure into the everyday grind of school, work, and life.

5) One of the best ways to nurture your budding popularity is to take it upon yourself to thoroughly critique someone’s pet project. Don’t wait to be asked to do it, and don’t fluff your statements with the positive. Never show happiness or excitement. Never tell them, “oh, it’s great” and just leave it at that. Do your best to find every single flaw and give them an exhaustive breakdown of each. List as much personal experience as you can, so they know that you are highly qualified to destroy their life’s ambitions in one fell swoop.

6) Spending time is all about quantity. It doesn’t matter what you do with your potential friends or significant others. It only matters how long it took to do it. An eight hour first date will always be better than a three hour one, even if the three hour date included a nice dinner, great conversation, and a lot of laughs. Some classic suggestions for long dates and hang out sessions include:

• Having your friend watch you create high scores on guitar hero expert level. (Don't let them play with you. It will only make them feel bad about themselves.) They need to know that you have marketable skills.

• Boys: Another marketable skill is basketball. All girls just love watching boys do layups for hours. Definitely don’t play in any games, don’t invite them to shoot around with you, and don’t do anything but layups. They only want to watch you do the same thing over, and over, and over again. It shows them that you’re dedicated. Nothing will pry you from your time consuming sports obsessions.

• Playing Warcraft for your potential admirer. Nothing says “you’re important to me” better than watching hours of mind-numbing video game graphics.

• Girls: All boys harbor secret desires to shop till they drop. Teach them your ways. Show them every clothing store from here to Paris. I guarantee they’ll thank you for it. You’ll always be his hero ever afterward.

• Boys: When you go to the movies, find the one with the most burps, farts, and lewd jokes. You might not realize it, but girls find these things extremely manly. If their man can’t degrade a woman with the stupidest and bawdiest jokes known to humankind, he’s not a real man. If he is incapable of finding a movie with no discernible plot funny, even with excessive burping, he’s not a real man.

• Always talk about your ex-boyfriends/girlfriends. We’re not talking once in a while. We’re talking at least twelve times a day. Your roommates crave the nitty-gritty details of your past. When they hang out with you, that’s all they really want. And your dates? Best conversation opener ever. New boy/girlfriends like emotional baggage. It’s a real turn on.

7) All people enjoy indentured servitude. Don’t ever take their trash out, especially when you were the one that filled it. (This is most critical in bathroom settings). Don’t ever do the dishes, even when they’re all yours. And don’t ever put lids on your jars. I’ve never met a person who didn’t like to extract sticky spoons from congealed grape jelly, search the entire kitchen for the lid, and figure out who the jar actually belongs to before they put things away. It makes life so much more eventful. They would be horribly depressed if you took this one simple joy away from them.

8) Girls: Everyone cares about your monthly time. Everyone wants to hear details. All the details you can muster. Your roommate loves it. She would never get creeped out, grossed out, annoyed, disgusted, or bored with you. And your boyfriends are even more keen on the subject.

9) People that always try to feed you when they cook are also very free with their food. So free, in fact, that they want you to eat whatever you can find in their cupboards, even when they’re not around.

Plate of cookies on the counter? Eat half of them. In fact, you should even leave the plastic wrap open to let them know that you were helping them out. Nothing says love like half a plate of stale cookies that your friend no longer has to have the bother of giving to someone special.

Pot of simmering soup on the stove? Help yourself to free dinner. It’s a certain chance that they were only making enough for leftovers and not feeding a crowd of people. They don’t need leftovers anyway. They’ll have plenty of money to spend on more. Being broke doesn’t exist in America.

10) I can’t think of a better way to endear yourself to someone than by contradicting everything they say. But you must remember, this only works if you use a most serious and knowledgeable tone of voice. Pretend you know everything. And never, ever take into account the fact that they might have been joking. Accuracy is crucial in every aspect of life.

Sometimes they may act as though they're annoyed with you. This is a good thing. Feeling like they’re chronically wrong and should consider the idea of becoming a mute is character building. We would never have any positive self esteem if people actually complimented us occasionally. And we would certainly never feel good about ourselves if others stopped finding fault with everything we’ve ever said.

11) There is no such thing as overdoing a joke. Even if all twenty people in the room have teased someone about a silly little mistake, rehashing the joke yet again will always be funny. Do it six more times. Or a dozen. It’s impossible to destroy anyone’s confidence that way. Good clean fun is what we’re all about here.

12) When someone likes different music, movies, or subjects than you, make it known to the world. It will never be okay for someone to like country when you only like rap. And it will never be alright for someone to enjoy a movie that you thought was stupid.

One note, though. Never bash the movie or the music. Always aim strictures on poor judgement at the person in question. They may act like they’re never going to speak to you again, but what they’re really doing is re-assessing their self worth.

These steps should give you a great start on the road to becoming liked and popular as long as you follow them strictly. Half efforts produce half results. If you want to be the life of the party, or the star of the class, nothing works better than our simple program.