Facebook Friends - Does This Ever Happen to You?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>For the second time in about a month I have gotten a Facebook friend invitation from someone from my high school that I barely (and I mean REALLY barely) remember. Both times they have been mutual friends with another FB friend from my hometown, and I message that friend to quiz them about this person (Do I know them? How – what graduating class, what activities?). Hmm, I say to myself, “Jenny”, seems very vaguely familiar… Just like I would be in real life, I am reluctant to admit that I don’t remember them. But it has been almost 30 years since I lived in my hometown, so that isn’t too surprising.</p>

<p>I accepted the first one, and it feels sort of odd to be let in on the day to day life of this person who is a complete stranger (although apparently perfectly nice, and I have no worries about them seeing my FB posts). I know about her kids, their graduation events, driving mishaps, and pets. I assume I will accept this second one after some reminders from the mutual FB friend. But it is just so strange… Has this happened to anyone else? Did you accept? Were you glad, sorry, or neutral after the fact?</p>

2

<p>I accepted a few people from HS, and for the most part it hasn’t been a problem. I did put one guy on hide for a while because he kept posting political stuff I wasn’t interested in. Since then, I’ve been much more stingy about accepting friends from HS. I igmore most of the requests.</p>

3

<p>Sometimes I accept them, then drop them soon afterwards. I do “hide” people often. For political or other assorted reasons.</p>

4

<p>I have created a limited profile group and when someone I barely know friends me, they go into that group. They can’t see most of my photos or my wall or my list of other friends.</p>

5

<p>I, too, have created a limited profile and accept those people I barely remember, but limit them until I know more.</p>

<p>My DD says some people are FB friend “whores” meaning they add every one they can to build up their count.</p>

6

<p>I’ve had this problem and tend to just them let sit in limbo on my friend’s request page. I don’t confirm or ignore them.</p>

<p>What disturbs me more is I occasionally get friend requests from people I’ve never met and that don’t have any friends in common with me. What’s up with that?</p>

7

<p>If I remember the person, I usually accept the invite. If not, I usually don’t. I have a few FB friends I barely knew at all. But we came from a small school district, lots of mutual friends have reconnected so it seems okay. Although I have left unconfirmed one person whose name rings no bells and whose picture in the yearbook also rings no bells.</p>

8

<p>I accepted FB friend requests from people in high school that I barely knew. I’m now thinking of defriending most of those people. Same for folks from a message board years and years ago.</p>

9

<p>I have more than 1,000 Facebook friends, the great majority of whom I know in person in some way. My FB friends include people whom I went to high school with, but didn’t know very well, and haven’t seen in 40 years. </p>

<p>The day that I left high school was one of the happiest days in my life because my experience there was so miserable. I grew up in a 99.9% white area that also was conservative, and I integrated my high school. It was hard for me to be so different from the other students. I was very shy, was never asked to a prom, was never even asked to dance at high school dances. </p>

<p>So, I hesitated before accepting FB friends requests. I’m glad that I accepted them. The first that I accepted was a woman whom I remembered sat near me in a couple of classes, and was very conservative. Over the years, she has changed and we have much in common. For instance, in high school, neither of us was in theater, but last year, both of us were in Vagina Monologues at the same time, acting in productions in public universities about 1,400 miles away from each other.</p>

<p>Another high school classmate whom I barely knew back then lives about 10 mins. from where S goes to college. I spent an afternoon with her and her family last year, and yet again, learned we have lots in common including doing lots of community service. She runs a project that teaches art to homeless kids, and the kids’ work was featured in the museum on S’s campus.</p>

<p>The one bad experience I had with FB friending someone whom I didn’t know at all was FB friending a person in Malaysia, who also was a FB friend of my husband. H was on sabbatical in China at that time, and I assumed the woman was someone who had met him in person. She ended up being someone who randomly FB friends people, and who started posting about planning to commit suicide. After her life seemed back on track, I quietly unfriended her.</p>

<p>When people whose names I don’t recognize try to FB friend me now, before FB friending them, I send them a polite note asking how I know them. If there’s no reply or if I don’t know them at all or if they haven’t been referred by a mutual friend, I don’t friend them.</p>

10

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<p>Good suggestion. I might try that - I’ve got several people waiting on my friend’s request list that I don’t know.</p>

11

<p>Good suggestions, NSM. I check out with mutual friends but one caveat. Someone friended me recently and I had no idea who the person was - just could not place her. I noticed we had one mutual friend. I started to send that friend a message asking, “Do you have any idea who this is?” when I saw his profile and realized that this was his wife! She didn’t use his name. I think it would have been a little bit tacky to have sent that message.</p>

12

<p>LOL mimk6!</p>

13

<p>If I don’t remember them, I ignore the request.</p>

14

<p>If you don’t know the person at all and have no mutual friends, there is a place to click something to that effect. And really you should. These are either spammers or just assorted weirdos who randomly friend people. If they are reported by enough people to whom they do this, I think Facebook will take down their profile. </p>

<p>I accepted 24 h.s. friends during my earlier time on Fb, but then I quit accepting them unless I really knew them well. Some of the 24 should probably be deleted too, but I haven’t done it yet. The thing you don’t know is whether that person pays any attention at all to your posts. If they only have 50 or so friends, they very well might. And I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I just kind of don’t like having people I don’t really know being able to read my statuses, see who I’m talking to, etc.</p>

15

<p>I once had a friend request from someone that I absolutely did not know, so I sent her a note to ask how she knew me. Turns out, she and I share an unusual first name and she was trying to “collect” people with that name. I said no, thanks. LOL :)</p>

<p>Otherwise, I really enjoy being in touch with friends that I have long lost contact with otherwise.</p>

16

<p>My high school was tiny so I vaguely remember just about everyone, and I accept fb friend requests from anyone from home. Some I have a lot in common with now - others, not so much - but I see no harm in it. If someone is curious to see what I am up to now, that is fine with me - I would think that reading what I am up to now would be fairly boring :slight_smile: but I don’t have anything on my page that I would not want an old acquaintance to see.</p>