If you're talking about people in the world, then I absolutely agree that you should be extremely careful, and, in fact, I doubt that I would ever call anyone who is not a witness my friend. And I even felt this way about other witnesses at one point, but now that I've thought about it a little more, I have to disagree. Peter says that we should love one another intensely from the heart. I don't see how you could do that and at the same time not want to call them your friend. This is not to say that you will never be hurt by what they do or say, (I know my friendship has, on at least one occasion, been fairly badly violated), but until a brother has proven that they can't be trusted with your friendship I feel that you have to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Well..again I said I'm not really talking about a particular person or people just thinking in general. BUT just because you love all the witnesses doesn't mean they're really all your friends, and definetly not by the first definition. A lot of times you can't always love all the brothers and sisters because of their personalities because sometimes your personality and theirs just doesn't mix. You can love them because of how hard they try and stay with Jehovah or love them for their love for Him. Maybe I'm wrong though.
Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but I really like to try to think of all the brothers as potential good friends. Maybe they'll never be your best friend, but they can at least be more than acquaintances.
Actually, what I worry about a lot is whether I'm being too close to someone who really doesn't want to be my friend. For example, as you mentioned in your original post, sometimes I worry about whether I should refer to someone as my friend when introducing them to someone else. Not because I don't consider them as a friend, but rather that I don't know if they consider me as one, and I wouldn't want to make it awkward for them.
Oooh perhaps you have contracted my paranoid disease? But don't worry about being too optimistic it's a lot better then being too pesimistic.
Haha. I've been paranoid since before you were born. :) And the brothers are really the only people I'm optimistic about. I'm usually the most pessimistic, (or, as I prefer to call it, realistic), person you could meet.