Speeding Up Friendship

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Because I go to a very hard college, I’m usually busy and my friends are too. Because of our class and heavy study schedules we don’t get to see each other that much (same for everyone at the school). That’s just kind of how it is. I don’t worry about it EXCEPT…

I met a new friend a month ago. I feel like we clicked pretty well. The problem is we only get together every so often and I’m trying to get to the point where we’re good friends before the summer. How do I do that without being weird? Also, thus far the ball has been in my court. He said he’s willing to do stuff, but it seems like I need to be the one to let him know when/what I want to hang. I want to be in a situation where this friend also proactive. But I can’t very well sit him down and try to create a friendship roadmap for us given I’ve only known this friend for a month. And I have to be aware that grades are super important at the school and everyone is competitive, so he has to hit the books too.

CONTEXT: After meeting a couple of times, we became FB friends. We hung out at an event at our school one weekend and saw a lot of each other (and had fun at the event and the bars after), even getting lunch offsite. Spring break got in the way after that. And we’ve had another lunch since then. Other than that, it’s just been a couple of text conversations that I initiated (but he was fully engaged in) following up on a recommendation he made during that second lunch.

I don’t want to always be the one asking to hang out, even if he’s likely to say yes. But at the same time I think we’d be really good friends once we get the ball rolling a little bit more. Ideally, we’d get together once or twice a week until finals start.

What should my next steps be?

You sort of answered your own question with that statement.

The only advice I can give you is to let the friendship grow naturally. Don't pressure him - or yourself.

I guess part of it is just confusion. There are other people I've met and have no problem immediately texting however often (as long as it's not unreasonably frequent).

In this case, I'm so worried about finding the exact right thing to do to create a memorable fun experience and making sue I make contact at the exact right time (haven't texted in a week) and the whole hoping the friend will initiate conversation first thing, that I'm not taking the baby steps I need to do in order to build the friendship.