Connecting Friends/Family

Can you connect two MDE (MDX) accounts if neither person is staying at a Disney resort and do not have any friends/family in common on their lists.

Yes, you can request to link friends to your account and share plans. It is not necessary to be on site.

But how do you find them? It shows the only way to link MDE accounts is by searching for their reservation or just typing a name in, but just typing a name in does not link to their actual MDE account. It only adds a name to your friends/family list. I need to link two MDE accounts that have no ties to each other (common friends/family) and no resort reservations.