The night before my first day of first grade, my dad gave me my mission: make at least one friend the next day. I was the new kid in town and was extremely nervous, but I was determined — as determined as Tom Cruise hanging outside of a plane — to complete my mission. So on the next day, I dressed in my favorite shirt, confident that I could make at least one friend. It was one friend. How hard could it be? But as it turns out, it was truly mission impossible.

I didn’t understand. Why would somebody not want to be friends with me? I was nice, funny and downright adorable.

All they had to do was say yes to my single question: “Will you be my friend?”

“Why, yes! I would love to be your friend, Jessica!” It was supposed to be that simple.

Do you know what they said instead? “No. I already have a friend.”

When I came home and my dad asked me if I made any friends, I started bawling. I made the Pacific Ocean look like a puddle. When he finally got the waterworks to turn off, I explained to him what happened. My dad, probably wondering if he had raised a socially inept child, took great amounts of pity on me and gave me a crash course on How to Make a Friend 101.

Apparently, you were supposed to introduce yourself first, play on the monkey bars, organize playdates and then become friends. At no point do you explicitly ask, “Will you be my friend?”

I was confused and questioned my dad’s wisdom. Why can’t making friends be as simple as asking for them? My six-year-old mind couldn’t comprehend why something so simple had to be so complicated. If everybody thought like six-year-olds, all the drama, the chaos, the social upheavals of high school could be avoided.

I wish things could be that simple. I was venting to my dad about how finding a roommate was so difficult — stalking on both Instagram and Facebook, asking interrogative questions without sounding too interrogative such as, “Are you gonna steal my clothes?” — and he responded, “Really? Why don’t you just ask, ‘Will you be my roommate?’” He was, of course, making fun of me.

I know better now not to ask people to be my friend. Asking a question gives them a chance to say no. Instead, on the first day of college, I’ll just point to somebody and say, “You. We are going to be friends.”