I have gotten friend requests from people who never requested it. I know others who it has happened to, also. I think if a lot of your friends are friends with a person somehow FB auto sends requests. One I got was from my cousin’s ex husband. A bunch of us got the request. We asked him at my dad’s funeral and he never requested at all. We don’t have anything against him and neither does his ex - we just thought it was odd.
I have gotten a few requests from people in my high school ( not my class) who I was barely friends with and have had no contact with in 40 years. I assume they didn’t actively request to be friends so I delete these now.
I ‘unfriended’ someone for the first time recently. She was very involved in some multi-level marketing thing and posting about 15 times a day. I ‘unfollowed’ her and that helped until she started tagging all her friends in the postings so that they would show up on everyone’s wall. I did not appreciate that and unfriended her. She was a high school friend I hadn’t seen in 20 years, so no big loss. The weird thing is I got a message from her the next day saying’ I’m sorry you unfriended me’. You don’t get a notification when someone unfriends you, so was this woman watching her number of friends every day so she could tell if someone deleted her? That reinforced I made the right decision.
Maybe he values his marriage enough that he avoids situations where flirtation is likely to arise. I’m aware of at least a couple of affairs resulting from ex-lovers reconnecting on Facebook, so it is not a bad policy to ignore friend requests where you think it may lead to temptation. (Not suggesting that YOU’d be tempted; just saying that this may be the reason for his rejection of your request).
Most of my FB friends are from high school. They all live up in Michigan and that’s the only way I can keep track of what is going on up there. I was unfriended by my SIL(DH’s brothers wife) a couple of years ago… however I went out and checked her page and it seems she also had unfriended her husband too…they are still together, I’m not going to ask if it was on purpose or not.
I will probably be the most boring FB friend to have because I would not post updates or forward any cute memes… So no gain for anyone really from me being on FB.
I DO post a lot - it’s my outlet! I am very surprised by the number of people who follow what I write - folks who NEVER post on FB. I’ll mention something at church, and a friend will say, “Oh, yeah, I saw that on your Facebook page!” So I think a lot of people read posts but don’t write them.
BB, I have some friends who rarely post, although they will sometimes “like” one of my posts and be tagged in someone else’s photo. Even the occasional glimpse of them is nice, and when I see them in person they tell me they enjoy my posts. I have 2 friends who resisted going on FB for years, finally joined in the last year and now say that none of the bad stuff happened.
While I am glad it wasn’t around during my middle school days, I do really enjoy it now.
I make great use of friend lists so what I post is only seen by people who I want to see it. Sometimes different groups of people for different things.
If I feel I must accept a friend request that i really don’t want to, I put them right into a restricted group.
I also unfollow people all the time who post too much, or who I need to see IRL but whose online personalities annoy me too much.
I rarely unfriend people, but I also leave a lot of friend requests unanswered.
Most of my friends are also from school. I really enjoy that part of that…reconnecting and seeing what people have done with their lives. I have been guilty in the past of sharing my political beliefs but make a point not to now, except via private chats with like minded friends . I go there to be entertained and see positive , upbeat glimpses into the lives of people I share a history with. Of course, sometimes there is sad news too , which I don’t mind , but my feed is just increasingly filled with people just sniping at each other because they are on this side or the other…I think it is time for me to hide some more people from my newsfeed and get back to the more neutral updates.
My other least favorite posts - vaguebooking. Sharing some tidbit designed to make people ask what’s going on. Or talking about how “people” need to mind their own business or “stop being drama queens” or “liars never win” or stupid stuff like that.
Hate those too. Right up there with the “so-and-so [cute kid, sad grandparent,whatever] wants to see how far around the world this can go!” like it’s a real person and not some click-farm.
^^I really hate those. I absolutely refuse to be shamed, bullied, dared, or otherwise pushed into sharing or liking someone else’s stuff.
I MIGHT share something if I really like it for some reason and it doesn’t try to pressure me, but no matter how much I might agree with something I’ll never repost or Like something that says or implies that I if I don’t Share it then I don’t love my kids, or I hate America, or I don’t support our troops, or that I support animal cruelty, or I want cops to get shot, etc.
So many positives on FB, but the rotten apples in the experience can really sour it all. In that way I suppose it’s not much different than real life. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know people from a life long ago (high school being one )when we weren’t capable of knowing one another as considerate, thoughtful adults; keeping in touch with family and distant friends; and getting acquainted with others I’d never be able to meet otherwise. That said, I have unfriended a few people including two wandering now-ex-husbands of good friends. More recently a friend IRL seems to have had a mental breakdown of some kind; he started lashing out at a bunch of people in public places, zeroing in on me, and then stalking me in common FB groups and the friends lists. It was awful! I had to block him AND his wife, whose account he was using, make most of my profile private, and then take a leave of absence from social media just to have some peace of mind. Blech, the whole experience was enough, almost, to make me abandon any form of electronic socializing. Fortunately the blocking function creates a wall.
I’m facebook friends with my first serious boyfriend. I thought long and hard before accepting his request, but I’d done a little snooping and knew that while I am sure he’s a nice guy, he’s gotten rather unattractively overweight. We shared news and occasionally like something the other posts, but I’ll see hes’ in NY and he’s never suggested meeting up. Part of me would like to, part of me thinks there’s no need.
I’m actually facebook friends mostly with people I only know from the internet or close family. People from my art association often want to be friends and I haven’t been entirely consistant about it. One poked me twice!!
When my newsfeed just got ridiculous (seeing all the “likes” by my friends), I unfriended many people, not realizing until it was too late that I could unfollow them. Oh well. The vast majority were old h.s. friends whom I will never see again and have zero in common with now.
I really dislike seeing everyone’s “likes” in my newsfeed, but don’t want to unfriend or unfollow people because I do like seeing some of the posts such as family pictures, etc.
I have not and will not friend request any former boyfriends. I am FB friends with a close HS friend who is married to a guy I dated for quite awhile (they started dating right after we broke up). It’s all good though. Last week I wished them a happy 37th wedding anniversary.
I rarely post myself and mostly use FB in order to see what others are up to. I’ve never hesitated to “like” other people’s updates or post a complimentary comment to a friend. But seeing all of everyone else’s “likes” and being unable to turn off this feature is really such an invasion of privacy. I’m getting to the point where I don’t even want to wish anyone a happy birthday! I’m not sure if everyone sees my likes or just those likes that pertain to people that are mutual friends.
Obviously there are always some people you’ll comment to more than others, so I’m also sensitive to appearing to play favorites.
Another thing that bothers me, with the occasional exception, is when people post their endless third party news stories. I wish there was a way to hide anything that is not a personal comment. I’ve hidden some people from my newsfeed for posting too many of those stories, but wish there were a way to allow personal status updates to come through.
And speaking of invasions of privacy, someone that used to work for me has recently started showing up on the “people you may know” list. This person never had my email address or vice versa and I had never tried to look her up on FB.
Interesting, because I enjoy reading the news articles that my friends post (except the ones that start like “This grandma went to open her door and you won’t believe what happened next …”). My friends link to interesting articles in publications I don’t read regularly (Washington Post, Atlantic, New Yorker), and so I find FB to be a wonderful way to access good journalism.
)when we weren’t capable of knowing one another as considerate, thoughtful adults; keeping in touch with family and distant friends; and getting acquainted with others I’d never be able to meet otherwise. That said, I have unfriended a few people including two wandering now-ex-husbands of good friends. More recently a friend IRL seems to have had a mental breakdown of some kind; he started lashing out at a bunch of people in public places, zeroing in on me, and then stalking me in common FB groups and the friends lists. It was awful! I had to block him AND his wife, whose account he was using, make most of my profile private, and then take a leave of absence from social media just to have some peace of mind. Blech, the whole experience was enough, almost, to make me abandon any form of electronic socializing. Fortunately the blocking function creates a wall.