def load_friends(self):
    """Fetches the MAL user friends page and sets the current user's friends attributes.

    :rtype: :class:`.User`
    :return: Current user object.

    """
    user_friends = self.session.session.get(u'http://myanimelist.net/profile/' + utilities.urlencode(self.username) + u'/friends').text
    self.set(self.parse_friends(utilities.get_clean_dom(user_friends)))
    return self