Published on 12, July, 2020
At least 2 people recently have asked about this, and I didn't get round to responding, so here goes:
Step 1: Always be open and honest with the person you're trying to make friends with.
Step 2: Give each other a detailed description of your personalities. In theory, you instantly know each other well enough to know whether you like each other then.
Step 3: Ask questions about each other. I've got into trouble before for asking too many questions; I think 3 per e-mail should be about the right number though.
It's worked 2 out of 2 times for me when I've tried this method with people I've been in touch with by private message on here. We got on so well that I made friends with each of them in less than 2 weeks! So it seems to work.
I hope that's helpful for people.
I used to be really mechanical with it, but now I try (as much as possible) to go on intuition. Don't get overexcited cos someone was nice to me once, kind of thing.