Then a better solution would be to consider 'was recently comforted by a friend' type modifiers.
I'm not entirely certain that we're in the wrong to assume that a person with a lot of 'friends' have them at a level of intimacy as people cho choose to spend time with a select few.
Speaking as an introvert, i realize that people have friends for different reasons. Extroverts tend to spend time in social circumstances as relaxation. I.e. going out to meet others as a self-affirming action. They may know a lot of things about others, but may not be intimily connected to anyone.
I by contrast relax best when by myself. In any case, both 'types' may have the same number of 'intimates', at any given time.
I can say that a lot of my old friends, if they died, i couldn't care much. Even if we both consider ourselves friends and would probably be able to hook up and do stuff just like that, they are still so far removed from my current life. I wouldn't lack a part if they went and died.
I don't feel that people have the TIME to maintain friends to the scale of DF. Every child and every veteran soldier/guard(even more so with nerve damage), are friends with every one else 'off-duty'.
In my current fort, i have exactly 103 of 203 dwarves being either children/infants or who are conscripts. Counting the number of friends of a few of them:
'sUs' Abeica, Slayer[1] - 43 friends
'G6Leye' Umbralenses the Gloved Carnality of cobras, Titanslayer[2] - 61 friends
Emeg Materuja, child - 46 friends
Lathi Pativalona, mayor - 35 friends[3]
Boned Daughter, wrestler - 24 friends
[1] - recieved damage to upper spine while sparring, killed an invader
[2] - lost left eye to a bolt to the skull on the sixth' goblin invasion, slew a titan(21 assorted invaders)
[3] - WHOA, my titanslayer's boning my mayor's only daughter(husband died in a tragic incident with an elf bowmaster). She must've grown to be twelve like just a few years ago! It's 213 now, and i started out the game at 200. The logs tell me she became an adult just before i introduced the date-system on deaths, so maybe a season before the summer of 213. She'd be 12,5 now.
Also, she's got a broken leg and is only issued a pair of copper leggings.
With a food shortage coming up there are bound to be some serious tantruming and knocking of skulls. It'll be fun to see who prevails.
I play a modded race of lizardmen who are carnivores, which causes them to be unable to eat anything but meat and fish. They can still drink plant-based liquids though. They won't eat any form of prepared meal, so my sources of food are hunting(everything's dead), fishing(unsustainable), breeding(still a way to go), and trading for meat/fish. Caravan's coming up in like 4 months. We have been all out for a while now.