You can import friends over from WoW, like DV did, and you can always make new ones. It's not like there's a huge barrier to internet friends. If you connect with someone, then you friend them. If you don't like someone, squelch/ignore them.
While Rift is, at it's heart, a WoW clone, that's only because WoW brought a winning formula to the table. And Rift corrects a few errors that WoW doesn't, and introduces some interesting gameplay to the table. It's not new new gameplay, but it is a collection of some of the best ideas out there and refines them. It's good stuff.