Accidental Networking

Everyone around me (here, my friends, my school, my boss) talks about networking like it’s a calculated, pre-planned formula. I always tell people I’m horrible at networking, and I am.
I’m horrible at their kind of networking. You know, where you map out an agenda of people you want to impress and follow-up with them regularly. It sounds all well and good, really, and kudos to those who can do it, but it’s hard for me. The whole idea of that kind of networking feels… wrong. Cheesy. A bit like using people. Also, a bit of an imposition – like I’d be bugging them. (While I think that sometimes people take networking too far and are impositions, most of the time, it’s perfectly fine. So, I see this as my own unfair discomfort and judgment on the practice and nothing more.)
However, to say I’ve never “networked” is probably a bit of a stretch.

Two professors have gotten me editorial internships because I excelled in their class. A former customer from my former job, who happens to be a finance professor where I want to go for an MBA, will probably be instrumental in my getting into the program (though I think I might have been able to get in regardless, but I’m sure this will help a great deal) Other past clients will probably be helpful in the future, and I’ve gotten job offers through clients before. One got me a contact at a New York publishing house, where I actually did get a job offer I couldn’t take (I was still in school; couldn’t move). Another got me a job interview the other day, but the job was in a “city” (more like swamp) I hated, so I said a polite, “No, thank you, but I like your company. Let me know if you get something in another location.” Old interviewers have been helpful in getting me freelance work with their companies. This is, I suppose, a network.
Yes, I keep in touch with all these people, but in the same way I was always taught to keep in contact with a new or not-quite boyfriend. They all call me. And I follow up in a reasonably short time, happy to hear from them, always mildly encouraging. I bring up the dating thing, only because I do think it springs from the same place. Not insecurity, exactly, but more like some kind of weirdly-instilled feelings on appropriateness and protocol.
I only once asked someone to help me get a job (and they couldn’t) when I was 18. I felt horrible about it, and I pretty much vowed I’d never do it again. I can barely ask for letters of recommendation without feeling horrible, and only of people who have already outright said to me that they would be happy to provide them at anytime. I wish I could get over this, but so far I haven’t been able to just stop worrying.
Ironically, I make a great PR or publicity person because, on behalf of a company, I can ask for all sorts of things and promote shamelessly. In a job capacity, in an interview, I can ask for all sorts of things and sell myself completely. I’m not a timid person. So, I don’t know exactly from where my aversion to planned networking comes.
I want to strive towards getting better at it, because as many opportunities as I’ve had, I am probably missing out on some. But I also like not feeling sick and being able to sleep at night. I’m hoping the MBA from a great school will help me with this and allow me to build a large enough base of accidental connections that I don’t have to worry about really networking. Other than that, I have no idea what to do.
I think it doesn’t help that people in my family aren’t really executives, etc. They don’t have networking connections, not really. Barely. None of my parents really focus on their careers, though my dad and stepmom own their own business. They are more focused on money than the actual career and really eager for the day they can close it and retire. For me, money is important, but it’s not as important as the career itself (except as an indicator of success, in its own way, naturally). I really wasn’t raised in an enviornment that was conducive to that, though.