That's funny, you're answering my post and I'm answering yours.
Yeh, I'm not fully happy with it. If 'friend' is to mean 'intimate' I've never heard it in that way before, I haven't got my Chambers with me, maybe it has a meaning as a noun but that's new to me.
Does it mean 'friend' as a verb, as to become a friend which I would think would work better as 'befriend'.
Intimate doesn't quite fit correctly for me, but if you've got your Chambers there, could you check if it's in the definitions (maybe a rarer Def)