there is no good reason to give a merit to a close friend or work partner, it's the same as selling a merit in my opinion.
Rewarding merits to insubstantial posts or rewarding for the reason for friend or anything else must be a breach of forum rules and which may lead to get negged. We need to understand the true purpose of merit system and we must contribute up to the level we can for fighting against spamming.
how to get merit?
Just write quality posts. As simple as 123...