it starts with eye contact, then a smile

Trace back your memory of the first time you met your best friend. I honestly can't remember how we met. So for the purpose of this post, I'll fictionalize that fateful day.
I feel a disclaimer should be in place.
Similar to those cautioning people that the things they're about to witness is a recreation.

Warning: the following is a dramatic reenactment of true events. The names of the characters have been changed to protect the identities of those involved. This is based on a true story.

I've always wanted to do that... hehe

I met one of my best friends in middle school. The school's called James Baron Tyrone Senior Public School. For simplicity's sake, we'll abbreviate to JBT. Life was simple back in JBT. Not a care in the world, especially not having to worry about find a job, or repaying your student loan. At JBT, there was a French program that allowed students to take some core courses in French instead of English - I was in that program. Because of this program, the school was mainly divided into two, the Frenchies and the non-Frenchies. Being in the French program, I was therefore a Frenchie. Oddly enough, my friend wasn't a Frenchie. In fact, I don't quite remember ever seeing him that often in school.
We had some mutual friends, loose connections through friend of friends. Didn't really know him at all because I mostly stuck with the Frenchies.
Being socially awkward and short tempered as I was back in the days, I soon found myself somewhat ostracized by the Frenchies and my group of friends there.
Somehow, I bumped into his crowd of friends. Oh btw, my friend's name is Antonio Warren. I'd imagine he was smiling and welcoming me when I first met the guy. He was a nice kid.
As we graduated from Sr PS to high school we became better friends and closer. We found a common hobby and hung out a lot. Eight years later, after graduating university, we're still very close.

I tried to remember how it was when I first met the guy, but really, memory has a way of leaving out a lot of the details. Doesn't matter. The point I'm trying to make is - generally be a nice person whenever you meet someone.
Make sincere eye contact, smile genuinely and greet people warmly. You never know, they may just become your best friend.
From an acting perspective, many people say you should emanate emotions and feelings from the inside but I think that it is also possible to affect the inner self with the outer self.
Smile, be sincere and genuine and be a warm person, this will help you feel better on the inside.
A by-product of that is to make others feel better on the inside as well.

Win-win, no?