Saracasm aside, no I still can't find anything that answers my question. I'm new to Elgg but it seems that if people properly tagged items, when I run a search I would actually get helpful info? I've found plug-ins, but they are not updated or there were still lingering questions to postings. 

@mattd - Searching for "Friend request" in the plugins repo turns up a few plugins.  You'll have to do some reading through the comments to see if they've been updated to work on the latest version of Elgg, though.  If all else fails, give them a try and see.

@ mattd try this if you havent found anything yet.  It works for me. http://community.elgg.org/pg/plugins/release/71650/developer/sumonbd/friend-request#annotation-326031

Thanks Cash. Appreciate it. Just so I'm clear, when do new versions come out?

Here's a few docs about our release policy and the next version.

thanks Brett (for this and your other comment to my other posting).