I do recommend making friends with some girls (and the guys, for that matter). I do *not* recommend making friends with some girls for the purpose of potentially having sex or a more "serious" relationship with them... Friendship should be for friendship's sake, otherwise it can be destructive. I'm not saying something won't happen, or that you shouldn't pick up on it if it does (and you honestly, truly think it's a good idea, rather than just snapping it up for the sake of nothing else being there at the time), I'm just saying you shouldn't get to know people and become their friend with an ulterior motive.
Can I be the first to point out that this isn't always the issue? I've had plenty of friends, including plenty of female friends. I don't know how many guys are actually as bitter about the whole Friend Zone phenomenon as you hear, but it's never bothered me. Especially since most of the time, it wasn't so much that I shot and missed as that in the course of ingratiating myself I found out they're already in a committed relationship of some form. Pretty much all of them would later tell me that most guys upon hearing that would go "oh okay" and immediately walk away; I have a pathological aversion to being rude, and I figured hey I can always use more friends.
It was never some fear of the alien species known as "women" that stopped me from trying very hard or a general lack of social skills, just that good old overbearing fear of failure.
Kinda confused how the idea that "all a girl has to do to get some is wait" could not lead to a bunch of female ForeverAlones carefully perfecting their cross-stitch technique while never, ever leaving the basement where their prince will inevitably eventually find them. I mean, if the prevailing theory is all you have to do to find love is nothing, then why wouldn't you do ... nothing?
That is not the whole story, though. The shit we get fed culturally tells us that to get a man (and you MUST GET A MAN) we must be pretty, and then rather a lot of us get to find out that we are not pretty, and probably will never be pretty, and are thus totally fucked. Couple that with the idea that everyone else is getting laid - because of course all women can get laid at any time - and you get a dry spell (or even just "being 16") turning rapidly into "Well if every girl on earth can get sex but me, I must be the MOST HIDEOUS SHE-BEAST IN ALL THE LAND." Ta-da: crippling insecurity = ForeverAlone. True of everyone, even if it's reached through different paths.
That makes a lot of sense, the highlight disturbingly so. A self-sustaining cascade of believing you've failed at your end of the social bargain, by virtue of the obvious fact that you're alone, and gets a little more obvious every time you think about it, which when you're alone is usually every hour on the hour.
I can't be, no, I know I'm not the only person who's ever seen the bitter irony in this. That there's a bunch of dweebs of both genders sitting around out there, wondering where everybody else is and why they're not meeting them. You might even doubt the existence of such similar people, figuring that your area just doesn't have them or you're nerdier than you even think you are, especially if you're male since the existence of male nerds is well documented but the female variety are pretty well out-of-sight-out-of-mind. Being depressed makes it easy to believe that you really are the only true fuck up.
That's about when you hit on two realizations. One is that, if these other hypothetical dorks are as reclusive as yourself, then statistically speaking yeah you're not going to see them very often. And even if you do, you meet a weird phenomenon - dorks are not inherently magnetic, since by nature they're a little paranoid of any unknown human contact. It never ceases to amaze me when I'll go to a shabby used bookstore and check out the fantasy-sci/fi section, and there will be people at least as dweeby as me orbiting around it, trying to make sure no one sees them go in, and if they're already in there when I arrive (and like Hell don't I look like I belong there) will hunch up and quietly step away. We don't want to admit to being nerdy around strangers, even when by definition the strangers must be nerds themselves. Nobody wants to be that obnoxiously loud nerdy-and-proud-of-it guy. (The irony being that, like my Chuck Norris obsessed hambeast bro with no volume-control, they actually get laid.)
Which really makes me wonder about the other realization. That if what you're looking for in an another person is understanding, as ultimately all people think they do and especially people who spend a lot of time rattling around in their heads, then surely what you're looking for most is an understanding of what its like to feel lonely and unworthy. We as humans seem to be hardwired to be incapable of admitting this, or at least bitterly ashamed of it, even in the presence of people we can empirically expect to know exactly what we mean.
One of these days, I should start a dating site.
ForeverAlone.com, all ages welcome but specializing in 15-30, photos optional but sob-story and personal interests required, and they better be up to snuff.