I believe you should check this post out to understand what the merit is all about
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/merit-new-rank-requirements-2818350
The merit system was implemented in 2018 the forum Admin due to the rampant increase of shit posters and the need for quality post on the forum. It is the reward you get for creating good, useful, quality and helpful post here on the forum. I believed your friend should have informed you a bit about the merit along side as a requirement for you to rank up. When you make good post you are rewarded merits by members who finds your post of quality and helpful to him or the community. For every one merit you earn, you have 0.5 smerits(sendable merit) so if you earn two merits, you get 1 smerits which you can give to other members you find their post helpful.
Thank you for this convincing explanation, I will also want to ask if there are future plans to change the merit system. I understand that the actual merits are not sendable to others and only the sMerits can be sent. I'm curious to know if for instance, I can also gift out of my actual merit to a user.
I also wanted to ask if there are threads where we can decide to submit our posts for a review for merits gifting, when we create quality posts that are worthy of meriting.
Lastly, how can I know which of the posts to submit that are worthy of receiving merits, what are the indices of measuring a quality post in the forum?