Believe it or not, friendships do not just happen.

How did you become friends with the ones you are friends with now? Who followed whom around, before both of you eventually formed a friendship? Who texted the other, originally intending to figure out what the homework was, but upon realizing that the other did not know either, decided to start a friendship forming conversations instead?

The following will show a list of just a few of the many types of “pre-friends.”

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The Lingerer: This is the person who latches onto a larger group of people who are already friends. The Lingerer just tags along very awkwardly, conversing at when they think is appropriate until they become fully comfortable with the group and then just becomes part of the group.

The Forgetful (or the Dory Human): The Dory Human is named after the very forgetful blue fish from Finding Nemo. This type of person is the one who is always forgetting the homework that was just assigned last period and will resort to you to ask if there were assigned homework. The multiple conversations may or may not lead to a promotion from classmates to friends.

“This is so relatable! I have used ‘the Dory Human’ so many times. ‘What was the homework?’ is practically a pick-up line,” said junior Gabi Menendez.

The Schedule Follower: You would either love this person or learn to hate this person. Try for love, as you will be stuck with this “stalker” for the entire school year. Eight times out of ten, the first words you two exchanged will be, “What the heck–you’re in so many of my classes!” That will then lead into a joke about stalking people. Then you will either find out that you were meant to be friends or to keep your distance for the rest of the year. If you decide to keep them and become friends, both of you will have the convenience of always having a backup buddy who will know what your homework is. Or worst case scenario, both of you are Dory Humans.

The Relatable: You will probably look at this person with a large grin on your face after you find out that they watch every single TV show you are watching right now. But be careful with this type of friendship. When you are mulling over the philosophical issues of your life, you will probably realize that you and the Relatable only ever talk about one thing; your TV shows.

For example, for every person who bonded while watching Breaking Bad:

“So, uh, Breaking Bad is over.”

“Yeah, it is…Some finale, right?”

“Yeah, it was great.” [Insert long pause] “We no longer have anything in common.”

And your friendship doesn’t really continue until a new TV show comes along and you just so happen to find out that the Relatable is watching it too.

Freshman Jess Petrunok said,”[This is] so true. I have been ‘The Relatable’ many times and it is incredibly weird when you have nothing else to talk about.”

The Project Partner: The type of person is in at least one of your classes and the two of you happen to get assigned to a project that has to be completed at home. You guys meet up, start talking, and realize, “Hey this person is pretty cool.”

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Considering that friendship really isn’t a science, but more of a life experiment, be ready to try all of the above options when trying to make new friends.

As junior Iago Sanchez summed it up, “All of these are totally true. I kind of use all of them at the same time for getting along with my friends.”