I heard BTC first just like how your friend did. From social media and stuffs. It wasn't a pleasant introduction for me about Bitcoin because I thought it was just a currency in dark web and we all know that horrible stuffs happen most at that part of the internet.
Fast forward, I was sort of 'reintroduced' by my friend in crypto again and he  again mentioned Bitcoin. This time he cleared all the misconception that I had back then.
That year was 2017 and that's where I decided to invest mainly in Bitcoin. The story tells itself in the rest.  I don't want to mention my profits/losses that year for privacy reasons.
At the end of that year, Bitcoin reached 20k. It was hella memorable, but now we went higher.