You make good friends by first finding people who care about whatever you do.

A trick to hook them up, is to ask them to do a small favor for you, that way they'll feel subconsciously invested in your well-being so you can pay them back. But, never explicitly pay them back, or they'll feel free to ditch you; good friends "owe each other", strangers "are even". This is particularly applicable to actual money; lending a friend (any important amount of) money, then having them pay it back, is a pretty effective way to lose a friend.

After that, you'll still have to weed out the backstabbing two-faced assholes, but at least you'll have a larger pool of non-assholes left.

...at least that's the theory, until you get tired and grumpy enough that you'd rather get a shotgun and a "NO TRESPASSING" sign.