Currymaster

Hello, I'm just a relatively new guy to PRO. I'm not new to pokemon games in general but I've always been a casual player that pretty much stops after elite 4 except for back when I played gen 1 and gen 2 when they were new and fresh. I've been playing few days pretty casually on blue server. My current party is Gyarados, Budew (I'm wondering when it will evolve. I think it's supposed to evolve off friendship levels and last I checked it was 240+), pikachu (not starter), and farfetch'd and plotwise I'm supposed to board S.S. Anne but I'm trying to have all of my party hit 25+ first (I don't know if I'm being stupid and wasting my time or if this is what I'm supposed to do. I think I may be overcompensating ever since I lost first two battles against Jackson in a row then again to Ash in Viridian forest) If anyone wants to be my friend or something (actually don't even know if a friendship system exists in game) and just chat about the game or be helpful or whatever, feel free to reply to this, send whispers (I'm assuming it's the usual /whisper "name" "type msg" sort of thing?) in-game, send a message on forums, and/or invite me to some discord channel. I'm assuming guilds are kinda off-limits for newbies like me since they seem to only consider people with like 100+hrs in the game or something. Thanks for reading.