I have a few people on my "friends" list but right now, only one person really qualifies as a "friend" in an online game context. There is another I am embarking upon the friendship path with, but of most I come across and party with, and even those in my guild, I rarely speak to the same person multiple times.
I'm a "solo" type of player and always have been, because my habits don't tend to work well with the responsibilities of a party. I log out with very little notice and worry that I'll leave my party in the lurch (although I haven't yet), and I am very used to my personal pattern of playing these types of games, and have a difficult time finding people who match my playing style well enough for us to play together successfully.
I do tend to find one or two real RPG "party up" friends on the games I play... people with similar playing styles to me, people who talk as much as I like to talk (very little) and progress as quickly as I like to progress (let's not waste time). My friend, I'll call him Jkoll since I haven't asked his permission to name him publically on a blog, is someone I met the first time I logged in on the 10 day free trial, and now he's level 24 while I'm lagging behind at lvl 20.
The level difference doesn't matter much, however. When we fight together, between us and our pets, we clean things up pretty well. We didn't want to take on Wailing Caverns (WC) on our own but the quests around the Crossroads are going quickly when the two of us are playing together.
Aside from the combat similarities, I'm happy that my friend knows his way around the map just as well as (or better than) I do, and that we take turns leading on combat missions, since everything requires all that running around to get to where you need to be to start the quest combat. It's nice to be able to sit back from my keyboard and not have to lead, just stick my character on follow and let it go.
Jkoll is my only party buddy on Zul'jin right now however. I think tonight I'll go on with the intent of joining in on whatever missions my fellow guild mates are getting into and see if I can't find some more players who sport similar speed and playing styles to myself :)