New player.

I just started playing recently and have gotten my character to level 30 as an Arcanist (with the intention of going the Summoner route) and had a few questions. I don’t really have friends that play online games so is it weird to just add people in the Free Company I got randomly invited to as friends? Do you need to play with friends/form a party to enjoy the game? How do you make friends randomly in a mmorpg that you can play with… and am I way too late to the game to actually be able to meet anyone since everyone is on the newest expansion while I’m still working through Realm Reborn?