Are friends as important as family?

Honestly, not usually and most friends are not, not for me anyways. That's because for the last good bit of my life, I've not had any friends that were all that great. Haven't been around the right people, I guess. However, there are a small few who are like family. At the moment, I can only think of one who I can consider family & it's a girl I grew up with and we've just always been very, very close, even when we go a while without getting together. It seems for a long time now, all the "friends" I make turn out to be very... creepy (sorry to say it!) or they only want something or it ends up me being their friend, but when it comes to them being mine, it's non existant. It's all about them. They need, need, need and can't accept anything besides me being right there for them anytime they need it, including when important matters come up in my life. The couple of friends like this that come to mind at the moment, if asked anything about me, probably couldn't even answer.

However, I do have EF friends who are extremely important to me, even though I know it couldn't be "family-like" since we've never met, but they do happen to be closer than any of my real-life friends. Lol.