Okay I kinda swear this could be the last one but how about you let us friend other people on the forums in the friends tab and it sends the player a friend request in-game (this only works if they've joined mineverse before and they have a minecraft account linked to their forums profile and have their friends profile linked of course). That or you could let us type in a valid minecraft username (check mojang API to see if it's valid) and check again the above requirements to make sure you can send one in the first place.
oh i see i'm sorry i have edited the title now (i couldn't think of anything that made sense using Ares sadly :( )