Cannot See Friend/Invites Minecraft Xbox One LAN

I just bought a brand new Xbox One X and Minecraft (not xbox one edition) to play with my roommate on his Xbox One S. He had been playing xbox one edition minecraft and after researching the lack of updates, he also purchased the standard edition of Minecraft.
Both of us have completely open privacy settings, have double checked the settings online and on console, i have verified we are friends online and on console, i can see him online and in game through xbox dashboard but not in game. Neither of us have xbox
live gold accounts. We are both connected to the same wifi.

I have researched this issue for hours and ive seen hundreds of other people with the same issue with no solutions listed except checking privacy settings and reinstalling the game, both of which we have done several times.

Please help. Just spent 54 dollars to play this together and we've gotten nowhere.

:)