One of the frustrations with learning programming is that you absolutely have to be in front of the computer. Audio is a great way to learn while driving, walking/running, doing the dishes etc. Really frees up the slots of time which you can use to keep learning!
A couple of questions:
1) is "my-friends" an html file? Does it have an extension (.txt .html, etc)? If so, it must have that extension in the link. I am running under the assumption that is is another page in your site and is called "my-friends.html".Make sure it has an html extension. The names must match (file name and the name in your link)
<p>Meet<a href="my-friends.html"> my friends.</a></p>
2) If this is a file, it must be in the same directory as your index.html (or whatever you call you home page). If not, you need to give a path to the file. It is customary to have the html files of a site in the root directory and other things in sub directories.
<p>Meet<a href="directory/my-friends.html"> my friends.</a></p>
If I am barking up the wrong tree, clarify what you mean by not loading correctly. Add a screen shot if you can.
I run CentOS Linux. Of editors available to both CentOS and MAC, I have used VIM, Brackets, Atom, and Sublime Text.
I have used others that are not ported to MAC. Of these, I always come back to Sublime Text.
Best Advice? Try several, you will find one that stands out among the others.