how do you make friends?

I go to karaoke bars, San Myshuno Festivals, join clubs, go to nightclubs, lounges, and sometimes just walk down the street.

If I'm starting a sim out I usually form slight relationships with the neighbors (welcome wagon, dance and chat) and some walkbys. They build the relationships when they need social by inviting them over and either getting social and fun or cloudgazing. I usually stick with a few sims to build relationships with in the beginning.
I'm usually jumping between a few aspirations and then as quickly as I can I buy the incredibly friendly trait.
Once I have that I have my sim meet more people since they start off with a great boost to friendship immediately. I delay my sims having active jobs until they have this trait even because it's so much easier and I can pat myself on the back for working the game to my advantage. It makes many other aspirations easier also.. like friend of the world, serial romantic, party animal ect..

If I'm trying get specific sims to meet, I usually toss them in a dummy club to establish a relationship and then delete the club. Then I'll have them hang out somewhere.

I never had to cheat relationship values. You only have to meet a sim 2-3 times and chat them up and they're a friend. I also like to get the "Incredibly Friendly" reward trait, that way my sims can pretty much be friends instantly with any sim I want them to.

I generally go to a community lot and chat up whoever shows up.

"Cupid;c-16683181" wrote:
If I'm trying get specific sims to meet, I usually toss them in a dummy club to establish a relationship and then delete the club. Then I'll have them hang out somewhere.

Exactly this
I like to play for multiple generations, so I usually make a “play date” club. This way my Sims can make friends with their classmates, and then I use the cake to age all the friends together.

i create them, plop them down in the world, and then have my sim go out and hope they'll run into them. if they don't after a while i just have my sim visit their home.
i don't cheat the actual relationship. the relationship cheat is kinda buggy and building a relationship isn't hard at all.

Scumbumbo mod "phone chat longer/gain friendship", I hate having visitors.

I mostly use clubs for friendships.

It depends. I don't go out of my way to make friends for my sims. Usually it will happen anyway, some time. I do cheat some friendships, like in rotational play, if I want my played sims to be friends with eachother. Or if there are townies I want my sims to hang out with.

I absolutely do cheat quite often, using the UI Cheat Extension mod. I also always pick the Incredibly Friendly trait (and Observant, since CAN take quite a while to know all the traits the "normal" way).