I have some friends, but if you want to have me as a friend, I am able to have more. I'm not harsh with the criteria for friends, I just want someone who is a sort of good player(with probably 10000 points or more) and who won't just spam me with challenges. Yes, I know that some of the friends that I have don't meet my criteria, but it's my friends list, and I can do what I want. Also, if you're my friend, it would be nice if you would play my tracks.
unfortunately, private conversations don't count towards your messages total and therefore aren't good for trophy points (which also makes sense because iirc, you can't like private messages, so they'd be awful for your like to post ratio). if you want an easy way to improve that ratio, messages on people's profiles also don't count towards that total, but can be liked. note, though, that if you abuse that fact, a moderator might take the likes gained from those posts away, so make sure to keep it reasonable and stay active in the community if you want trophies. that's really the easiest way.