It'd help if we knew whether you were talking about Live Chess or online chess.
In any case, let's talk about search the Members list for a member's name. For some reason or other, I sometimes can't find a member using that tool. Perhaps you are having that problem. I suggest this: paste the following link into a new tab of your browser, replacing your name with the exact spelling of your friend's name.
http://www.chess.com/members/view/Statler
That technique is successful all the time - if there is actually a member by that name.
OK ...
Now, let's assume that you are really talking about finding your friend to play a game of Live Chess.
To do that, there are a couple of things that must be true:
a) YOU must be in the Live Chess environment, and
b) YOUR FRIEND must be in the Live Chess environment at the same time.
If your friend is an official chess.com Friend, then his/her name will show up under your Friends tab. Click Play beside the name and you will get a game.
If your friend is NOT an official chess.com Friend, but you can get that person to speak up in any of the chat areas, click the name, click Challenge to Game and you will get a game.
If you can't get the friend to speak up but somehow know that he/she is really there, you can look under Games tab / Players tab and use the alphabetical tabs to search for the name, then click Play.
You'll find many of these details spelled out in this Help document:
http://support.chess.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/127/0/how-do-i-challenge-a-friend-to-play
hi
great site. I joined but I can't find my friend to play. He joined and I can't find him in a search - am I missing something obvious?
Thanks...