Help me understand chess.com rating

So, as I went up through the leagues, I noticed that players rated 800-1000 played very differently. 

By the time I got to champion league, a player rated in the 900 was playing and responding to chess openings, gambits, etc (whereas previously it was all a jumbled mess). I also started to see much better skill, from the same ratings than I had previously seen. 

Lately, I've been climbing the ratings myself breaking into 1100, but I have a friend who is in the mid to high 1200-1300 range, and yet I can easily defeat him? 

I have another friend who is consistently in the 800-900 range, who when I play tends to do much better than I would expect from those ratings. Yet he can't seem to escape his range either.

My question is if chess.com has a secret rating that is matching people based on skill, and not based on rating. As opposed to letting your rating eventually match you with like skilled opponents? 

Please and thank you!. 

Usually this is the explanation... but first I need you to think about your games. Like everyone else, sometimes you have good days and bad days right? Sometimes you make embarrassingly bad mistakes, and sometimes you're happy with the game you played.

So when an 800 player beats a 1100 player (just a random example) sometimes the 800 (or an observer) might get the wrong idea... sometimes the 1100 played way below normal (it was an embarrassingly bad game for them) and sometimes the 800 player played a game much better than their normal game.

Now... the 900 players you said played very well, you can check their history (things like peak rating and their rating graph) because sometimes they're sandbaggers (they lose games on purpose to lower their rating)... but many times with posts like these, the issue is the player misunderstands... beating a player at X level does not mean you're at level X. To be at X you have to consistently win about 50% of the time... and players below X you have to consistently beat more than 50% of the time, etc.

In any case, no, there is no hidden rating used for pairings.

Getting to ____ rating in chess can always involve a different combination of skills and knowledge. You might get to that rating one way, and your friend might do it in a completely different way (maybe one person is good at attacks, and the other at endgames)

If your friend's combination of skills and knowledge happens to make him a difficult opponent for you then you might overestimate his abilities. Or for example, if a player's strong suit is something you're bad at, you might overestimate them if you're not seeing how bad they are at something you're good at.

Bottom line is that if a player can't move beyond a certain rating, it means they score less than 50% against players rated ~100 points higher. Maybe that player seems good to you, but the fact is they're losing too many games to players rated higher than they are.