Different ways to handle this - using your User CP, you can create friends and a social group networking or join them. As Doug mentioned just looking up the members profile, and then requesting "befriend" should do it as well. I already have a few friends, I swear
Created a John Deere social group as well - for anyone who cares to join it, and see where it goes from there
Its kind of whats used on Myspace and similar.