The Why and How of Friendships

I've tried, really, I've gone to a few events in my dorm building, I've talked to people in my honors classes and music class, but even after all that I think I've forgotten how to make new friends... When you really stop to think about it, how do you make friends? I don't even know. I feel like all my friendships just...happened. One day we're acquaintances just talkin to each other, and the next, we're friends. Where is that key moment? What has to click? 

I'm not sure I can base my research on making friends on the friendships I've made through the pit. I think that was a once happening type thing, and it won't work that way again. Pretty much all I did there was hang around a lot, didn't talk much (mostly just laughed to myself), acclimating myself to the types of people in the group, just BEING there until people started to notice and remember me. But that can't really work here, there aren't close-knit parties I can sit-in on, there isn't a singular activity that we bond over, there isn't a group that I can just start to follow around until I'm suddenly part of it. And aside from that, it took me over two years to ACTUALLY be friends with those people. I can't decide if it was because of the group of people I was trying to break in to, or because I was playing the balancing act to keep two very separate groups of friends (kind of dropped the ball on that one for a bit though, didn't I?), or both.

And my friendships before that time are too early on to remember the beginning of, though I know Jenna and I became friends through working on some project in Social Studies together. And with Jenny it was from homeroom in sixth grade and our little group of new kids. But sixth grade was also one of the less enjoyable years of my life; Jenny and I were in constant fights, and generally I was not terribly close with anyone else, though I hung out with the same people before school every day (Jenny, Wendy, Hetty, etc (I rocked out the Asian friends, hahaha)) and we occasionally met up after school too. And any earlier times of new friendships are lost to me, though I had and can recall many friends in elementary school and at summer camp/swim team.

Friendships have been too gradual to trace, too rocky to follow, too smooth to remember the exact moment. I've fought to break in, fought to keep, fought and lost. I've faded in and faded out. I observed, I blended, I spoke. 

Suppose every time is new, it's different. But why and how? And what am I supposed to do?