my IRL boyfriend and i split up what skills we would learn, so that we can help each other out. i take care of a zoo's-worth of animals and sell him the resulting meats, milks, and grains, and he cooks with them and sells the food. another friend of ours crushes ore for me to make powders with, and can smelt metal to sell to my boyfriend to make tools. i have mining, refining, and smelting skills as well, but i get bored of mining pretty easily so i'd rather pay someone else most of the time.
it's far more useful to have friends with different skill sets than it is to have everyone specializing in the same thing.
Best way to remain social, is to all start a group together, and then you can all chat while you do your different things, and if you find something that you can all do together, arrange in the chat where you can meet up in game :)
I have my friends I already know in group chat, so talk to them ...pretty much constantly lol
But when I'm out 'working' in the Glitch world, I don't tend to team up with my friends, unless it's something I need help with or they need help with.
I personally chose to go down the gardening path, and have as little to do with mining as possible, so for my skills path I don't need to constantly work with a group of people.
I find that a great way of meeting new people is to join in with them when they're in a group, if they're doing something you're interested in (and if they're happy for you to join in, of course).
I found a group of strangers trying for Parade achievement in Heights yesterday and joined in with them and ended up making quite a few new friends out of it. Which was great :)
Eventually, with the addition of new skills, we're all going to be forced to 'specialise' anyway. Forming your own circle of 'specialists' for particular jobs sound like some fine future planning.
WTB friends who can cook! I actually burn water, I'm that bad at it :(