It's Steph here from the Community team. Thank you for getting in touch with your suggestion.
To check whether a member is a 'friend' on the Community, you can click on their username anywhere on the site. You'll be taken to their profile page where you can easily check if you're already friends or not.
On a desktop, you can click on 'connect' on the member's profile to check your friend status.
On a mobile, you should click on the big + on the member's profile to check your friend status.
If you're already friends, it will offer you the option to 'unfriend'.
If you have a pending friend request with that member, you'll see an option to 'cancel friend request'
If you're not already friends, you'll see the option to 'request friendship'
You also have the option of going to your own member profile friends page to see all your friends in alphabetical order by username.
On a desktop, go to your own profile, then click on the 'friends' tab.
On a mobile, go to your own profile, then click on 'more' then chose 'friends' from the menu.
Your suggestion is a good one, as it would mean you could see at one glance if you are friends with another member or not. Unfortunately I don't think this is an option currently supported on this platform, but we will look into it in case there's a way.
I hope this is helpful and please do let us know if you have any further questions, or need additional help.
