Jim Harmon's 1962 story opens with William Manet alone on Mars, tasked with overseeing an automated atmosphere seeder. The narrative voice is wry and self-aware: Manet catalogues his own anticipated descent into madness, tacking up a picture of Annie Oakley and winking at it until she winks back. The prose balances clinical observation—'loneliness was a physical weight on his skull'—with sardonic asides about the absurdity of his post. The excerpts reveal a man who has already begun talking to himself, lecturing an imaginary audience, and whose only companions are the products of a Lifo kit that generates people from his own memories. The story's tone shifts from detached irony to raw frustration as Manet's creations prove stubbornly, infuriatingly limited.

The Setup: Isolation as Experiment

The opening paragraphs establish Manet's isolation as both a bureaucratic joke and a personal trial. The station is 'entirely automatic,' and Manet is a featherbedded overseer, a concession to union pressure. Harmon specifies that no tests were given for 'well-balanced, well-integrated people'—the job attracts those who, like Manet, are already prone to solitude. The prose catalogues his initial plans: to 'correlate loneliness to the point of madness,' to lecture himself on philosophy, to 'live more like an animal and think more like a god.' Yet the tone undercuts any grandeur. The waiting to go crazy becomes 'a tearing bore.' The excerpt's strength lies in its precise, deadpan details: the chalk desert, the stars 'gleaming as hard as a starlet's capped teeth,' the moons and Earth visible in the black sky. Manet's self-awareness—he knows he is talking to himself, knows the picture winks back—makes his situation both comic and unsettling.

The Lifo Creations: Flawed Mirrors

Manet's Lifo kit generates companions from his own memories, but they are distorted. Ronald, a friend from the past, appears with 'chapped lips' from shouting for months. Veronica, a romantic interest, is cloyingly sweet and ignorant—she thinks the Korean War is still ongoing and asks to meet Daniel Boone. Harmon uses their dialogue to highlight Manet's frustration: Veronica's 'stupidity is hideous,' yet she forgives his insults. The creations are not independent beings but caricatures, limited by the kit's programming and Manet's own flawed recollections. The story's central irony emerges: Manet sought company, but his companions only amplify his loneliness. They cannot understand his situation or offer genuine connection. The excerpts show him oscillating between trying to educate them and lashing out physically, striking Veronica and locking both in a room. The Lifo kit, meant to solve isolation, becomes a source of new torment.

Escalation: Violence and Desperation

As the excerpts progress, Manet's behavior grows more erratic. He back-hands Veronica, then realizes he 'should have been doing it long ago.' He locks Ronald and Veronica in a room, then giggles at the thought of them 'behind a locked door with my best friend.' The prose captures his spiraling state: he walks carefully to avoid the corridor 'rolling up tight and squashing him,' and his reflections corkscrew in the curved walls. Harmon uses sound—Ronald's sepulchral voice, Veronica's forgiving tones—to underscore Manet's entrapment. The Lifo kit lacks parts to create new models without cannibalizing existing ones, and Manet wishes for a Modifier from a trader named Trader Tom. The excerpts do not reveal whether Tom returns or what the Modifier does, but the setup suggests Manet's desperation will drive him to further extremes. The story's title becomes bitterly ironic: the manual for making friends yields only frustration.

Voice and Structure: Dark Comedy in Confinement

Harmon's narrative voice is the story's engine. The first-person-limited perspective stays close to Manet's thoughts, rendering his self-pity, sarcasm, and flashes of violence with equal detachment. The prose is economical: 'loneliness was a physical weight on his skull' and 'sandpapered his self-pity to a fine sensitivity.' Dialogue between Manet and his creations is stilted, reflecting their artificiality. The structure moves from Manet's internal monologue to interactions with Ronald and Veronica, then back to solitary frustration. The excerpts suggest a cyclical pattern: Manet creates, hopes, is disappointed, and lashes out. The setting—a single station on Mars—intensifies the claustrophobia. Harmon avoids explaining the Lifo kit's mechanics in detail, focusing instead on its emotional consequences. The story's humor is dark, rooted in Manet's recognition of his own absurdity, but the excerpts leave open whether he will break free or descend further.

The excerpts from How to Make Friends offer a compact study of loneliness and its unintended consequences. Readers should attend to the gap between Manet's self-awareness and his actions—he knows he is talking to himself, yet cannot stop. The Lifo kit's limitations are not technical but psychological: Manet's memories cannot produce the understanding he craves. The story's brevity (under 8,200 words) rewards attention to its tonal shifts, from wry observation to raw outburst. Harmon leaves Manet trapped between his own mind and his flawed creations, a position that resonates beyond the science-fiction premise.