Can I get Bitcoins anonymously by having a friend perchase them from an exchange and tranferring them to me? Be kind to me as I'm a little bit fresh off the block with regards to bitcoin...

Basically I'm looking for a practical way to get bitcoins anonymously. I know I can find people to meet up with to purchase bitcoins for cash and I know about Bitcoin ATMs but I was wondering, what if were to set up an anonymous bitcoin wallet and then have a friend purchase bitcoins legitimately through an exchange and then transfer the bitcoins to my wallet... Isn't this pretty much exactly what those people meeting for cash are doing? Obviously then it's not anonymous for my friend but so what? They don't need anonymity if all they're doing is buying and selling bitcoins right?

Thanks
At best, you're going to get Pseudonymity doing things that way. A determined adversary will know that your friend got the bitcoins and transferred them to someone. It wouldn't take that much digging to find out who your friend transferred those bitcoins to. 

For example, if you were to purchase something illegal with those bitcoins and law enforcement cared about it, they would find out that these bitcoins at one point were with your friend. At that point, they'd go and find out from him who he sold the bitcoins to. You would be found out very quickly if they can locate your friend. This is, in fact, the sort of thing detectives do all the time.

You'd have much better luck tumbling your bitcoins.