Making friends isn't so hard.

Recently, I went on a "last chance" trip to Niagara Falls, Canada with my brother and a few friends. We quickly ran low on money, but high on open bottles of alcohol. Since we were under the assumption (most likely correctly) that we couldn't take open bottles over the border, we needed a quick way to drink large amounts of alcohol.

We knew there was no way that we could drink all that wine, whiskey, and vodka by ourselves, so my brother and I decided to call a few friends over and make a party out of it.

First, at my brother's suggestion, I phoned room 110 to come down the hall for "wine, whiskey, and vodka drinks." They said they couldn't come down, even though they'd love to, but they're "going out."

So, my brother called room 124, our neighbors. No answer, sadly. Then I made the suggestion to call our upstairs neighbors, room 223, and see if they wanted to come down.

"Hi! Room 223?" My brother began, "This is 123. We were wondering if you'd like to join us for a few drinks. We have wine, whiskey, and vodka for screwdrivers." He paused for a few moments while the other line responded. "We're just four friends up here for vacation and we'd like to make new friends." Pause again, "Yeah, okay."

I had the video camera on him at this point. He turned to the camera to explain, "So, he sounds kind of interested, but he has to confer with his girlfriend. We may or may not being having guests over." He turned back to the phone, "Good. Wonderful! We'll see you then." A big grin on his face, he spoke to the camera again, "He said, and I quote, 'Despite my girlfriend's hesitations, we're just going to finish dinner and then we'll be down in about ten minutes.' Score!"

Twenty minutes later, we thought they had skipped out on coming to visit us. My brother and I ended up leaving the room with four glasses of wine and the video camera (no one else wanted to come with us). Out in the hallway we ran into a family who got the floors mixed up after leaving the pool area. As we were waiting for the elevator and chatting with the family about trying to make friends, a man and a woman walked through the hall, coming from the stairwell, "One Two Three?"

I turned, as did my brother, "Yes."

"We're two two three!"

About two and a half hours and two or three mad libs later, Ellie and Damien, from room 223, joyfully left our hotel room to get some sleep before the wedding they had to go to the next afternoon. They were full of booze, as were we, and they had a story to tell at the wedding the next day. And probably one to tell at home, in the Bronx, too.

See? Making friends isn't that hard, you just have to be willing to put yourself out there enough to face rejection. Try it next time you're stuck at the hotel on a rainy night. Who knows? You might just meet your own version of Ellie and Damien!