Yes, I am using them. But everybody uses everybody else. People usually spend time and effort on other people who they get something out of. The friends that a person chooses are usually people who bring something positive to that person's life - fun, laughs, human connection, closeness, support, comfort, etc, because why bother otherwise?, and that is how it is naturally and how it should be. Why would you surround yourself with people who don't have any things about them to affect you positively at all, unless due to obligation? So these guys are valuable to me and sure, we can say that I'm using them, just the same way everybody uses everybody else. But I care a lot about these guys - I feel very warmly towards them, I feel tremendously happy when I see that they are happy, I would like to be there for them when I can, if they let me, I want to do things that make them laugh or feel cared about, and on occasion I do, which is risky for me, because me doing nice things might creep them out and usually they don't appreciate it, and when I even imagine them sad it makes me tear up. They, on the other hand, are prone to ignoring me, snapping at me, standing me up, glaring at me, lying to me, and just generally not valuing me - I can feel that I am not important to them and I can feel that they would hurt me with a pretty clean conscious, even when it could be easily avoided.

They are not all bad and there is definitely good to them and to how they treat me sometimes, but oftentimes not, but in the end, they're going to hurt me, or they already have, and they're okay with that, and they're going to take what they can from me, without ever having cared about me, and without ever having cared about if I am happy or sad, and without being sad or even aware that I'm not in their lives anymore, while I think about them at least briefly almost everyday. And I realize that I am at fault, for letting them do that to me. But my point is, the difference between me and them and the concepts which each of us "uses" each other is pretty significant.