I am a bit lost on CiviCRM's functionality
tl;dr: start by reading the book :)

I think the most important thing for you to know at this point is that Civi is a tool not a complete solution. You'll get out of it what you put into it.

It's certainly possible to do those things by combining CiviCRM with other tools (namely Drupal or Wordpress + plug-ins), and if you do your homework and put in the time to craft the final product it could be perfect. Or if you don't, it could be a mess.

Here's an analogy to your requirement:


  I want to purchase a blender that can make healthy, delicious smoothies full of organic fruit, yoghurt or non-dairy milk (depending on the user's preference) and supplemental protein and/or vegetable powders. I want to be able to serve these beverages in tall, ice cold glasses to about a dozen friends on a weekly basis.


Well, if you know what you're doing, get the right ingredients, assemble it correctly (important: put the lid on!), and combine the final product with the right serving containers, yes your blender can do that (although one might argue that you are making the smoothies, not the blender). If you don't, it'll probably just make a mess all over your kitchen floor and ceiling.

But I digress about blenders. From your description it sounds like you are wanting to build a basic social networking site. CiviCRM doesn't do that at all. But if you use Drupal or WP to build a site with the social networking features you need, plugging CiviCRM into it can give you some additional features like mailing lists, fundraising tools, paid membership management, among others. If you don't need those things and just want a basic social networking site, then you probably don't need CiviCRM.