For me, I've found that the best way to use Mythic Scribes is the Activity Stream or to search old threads in their forums, as well as talk things out in the chat. You can also Follow someone by clicking on their profile picture, which will show their feed on a tab somewhere in your profile, but that most likely isn't necessary. You can bookmark your favorite posts or start threads about your work or writing in general.
There's no friends button because we're all friends here.
Right, I'm just more personally used to having an option to friend people due to FB and another writer-gamer site I used to frequent. But since Mythic Scribe is largely forum based, I guess it's redundant. I've been randomly navigating the forum by topic.