I’m been hanging out the last couple of weeks at mall (Dad drives me to a friend’s place, picks her up and then to the mall). I was my friend’s eyes in the stores for her shopping for her husband and son for Christmas presents. Anyway, I want to know what do you refer friends’ friend as whom are starting to become your friends? I seen them a couple of times before when we had birthday parties for Friend 1 or most recently Friend 1’s son’s birthday
I think it can depend on local (and friend-group-specific) culture, but… call them whatever feels right to you? When you think of the new person as also your friend you can call them your friend; before then, you could call them Friend 1’s friend, or simply their name (“I went to the mall yesterday with [Name]…”), or an acquaintance, or “a neat person I’m getting to know,” or whatever you like as long as it’s polite. 
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I usually use “friendly acquaintance” for people who aren’t friends yet, but I’d like us to be.
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It’s a group of Friend 1’s and Friend 2’s friends who I know from (program) and some friends of one of the friends of my friends.
like I said I have until recently I had only seen these friendly acquaintances of Friend 1 and 2 at a restaurant for Friends’ birthday around the mall.