People tend to respond to others as friends because of what they have found either lacking in themselves, or in life. Although you may be hard-pressed to name them, you have qualities that another lacks. To you those qualities are natural and to be expected, but to another they will be special. You might not seek yourself out for a friend, but you have yourself already anyway—so why would you seek yourself out as a friend? People tend to want what they don’t have. This sometimes take on a self-defeating quality—when it converts into wanting what you know you cannot have (i.e. a particular person isn’t interested back)—but it’s actually quite normal and natural to want what you feel is lacking in yourself and in your experience. It’s a major purpose of romance and friendship. Everyone has something to offer someone as a friend whether they know it or not, because that’s the way friendship and love work.