Facebook "Friend" Request Refused

[MIGrandma]

Have you ever sent a "friend request" to someone on Facebook and they refused?

I recently found another old school friend so I sent a friend request. Her picture appeared in my friends with "friend request pending", but the next day it was gone. Apparantly she refused my request. I have no idea why. I see her occasionally where she works and we always chat for a few minutes. I would love to know why she doesn't want to be friends on Facebook but I'm not going to bother asking. Obviously she has her reasons, but for the life of me I sure can't figure out what they would be.

I have had friend requests from people I don't know, and I refuse those, but I don't think I would ever refuse someone that I do know/did know in school.

Has that ever happened to you?

 

[NHdisneylover]

Well my dad refused me (and we are close)==presumably he did not want to suject me to his flirting with girls on facebook

I also know people who have facebook ONLY for family, or ONLY for a certain event (getting to know a group of cruises you are sailing with, keeping in touch with what is going on in the community theatre they are involved with, etc) and they just do not want to clutter it up with ANY other stuff. I can totally respect that.

 

[PebblesMK]

Have you ever sent a "friend request" to someone on Facebook and they refused?

I recently found another old school friend so I sent a friend request. Her picture appeared in my friends with "friend request pending", but the next day it was gone. Apparantly she refused my request. I have no idea why. I see her occasionally where she works and we always chat for a few minutes. I would love to know why she doesn't want to be friends on Facebook but I'm not going to bother asking. Obviously she has her reasons, but for the life of me I sure can't figure out what they would be.

I have had friend requests from people I don't know, and I refuse those, but I don't think I would ever refuse someone that I do know/did know in school.

Has that ever happened to you?

My facebook currently has 37 friend requests sitting all alone. I don't decline people, I just don't accept them. For me, if I'm not close to that person or don't want them knowing even trivial things about my life, I don't accept. It's generally not a matter of me disliking them, just me keeping things private.

 

[MELSMICE]

Yeah - I had a girl from high school not "friend" me after I sent a friend request. I'm not sure why either.

Also, my neighbor across the street (male) has sent me a friend request, which I accepted. One day DH was talking about something he posted & I realized that he had given me limited access to his FB. I thought it was kind of strange so I deleted him & then did another friend request. He hasn't accepted me again & I found out he has deleted my next door neighbor.

However..................his wife has been talking about how much he has been going out with friends, etc. & how he will not "friend" on FB either. Told her that she doesn't need to know who his FB friends are. Hello........can you say RED FLAG!!! That certainly wouldn't fly in my house.

Anyway, back to your original question.........yes, I was denied once & still don't know why.

 

[hereyago]

i haven't been denied, but i have denied a couple people. one was this crazy stalker-before stalker was used-girl who i knew in school and she hadn't changed, so she was denied.

 

[SaraJayne]

I haven't been denied, but I've denied requests. Including one from my DD's 9 year old friend.

Her parents have no idea what the word "appropriate" means for their children.

 

[Hillbeans]

Yes, around the time of my 20th HS reunion a bunch of people were friending each other and someone I sent a request to denied mine - it was weird and I actually asked her about it and she told me some lame excuse. It's not a big deal and I think she was just keeping her FB to her close circle of friends, which is fine with me. It just surprised me to get that first denied request.

 

[klj27]

I have denied strangers, people that know me but we are not friends, busybodies. I accepted someone who worked at my kids preschool but I had a lot of moral disagreements with after a few days of letting it sit there. It only took about three days until I became annoyed with her and I blocked her from seeing me and me from seeing her. Life is good again.

 

[disykat]

I think a lot of people only want close friends and family on facebook - me included. When I first joined facebook I ignored a few requests. At some point I finally gave in and realized that some people want lots of friends, not just close friends on their facebook and started accepting them. I do often wonder why people are requesting me though.

I've gotten so if I know them I generally accept. Then I hide them on my wall so that I don't see every little thing they post. I haven't really figured out a way to make sure they don't get stuff on me though - like when people post on my wall, tag me in pictures, etc.

I figure I only want to be facebook friends with people close enough to be on my Christmas Card list. Otherwise, I'd prefer to have more control over what I invite people to see.

 

[Hollywoodhaha]

I deny those I don't know. I have not been rejected as I only add those who I talk with.

 

[Disney845]

I am pretty anti-facebook and only set up an account at the urging of a good friend. I have refused many people from HS days.

They knew I was on (some of my fb "friends" had hundreds of friends). I don't know if they were put out by my refusal. I really didn't care. If they were people I was honestly interested in connecting with (and not just some random person I maybe knew 10+ years ago) I would probably already be in touch with them in my normal life. I honestly have less than 25 "friends" and most are SO's family members. I have thought about deleting several people who I had previously accepted because I find their fb posts annoying or shallow and do not have time for it.

I wouldn't stress someone declining your invitation. I agree with the pp who said that some people just don't want to clutter things up, or only want to use fb to connect with close friends and family.

 

[LisaNJ25]

Yes, by my cousin Oh well.

 

[lovetoscrap]

I've gotten so if I know them I generally accept. Then I hide them on my wall so that I don't see every little thing they post. I haven't really figured out a way to make sure they don't get stuff on me though - like when people post on my wall, tag me in pictures, etc.

I figure I only want to be facebook friends with people close enough to be on my Christmas Card list. Otherwise, I'd prefer to have more control over what I invite people to see.

Go to your Account/Privacy/ and then select Custom. Then for each category select Custom. From there you can either set each thing to be viewed by only specific people, or to Hide it from specific people, whichever one is easiest. The easiest thing is to set up your friends into "Lists" and put all the ones you want to keep from seeing your stuff into one group. Then you can actually just customize to hide things from that entire list.

I prefer to keep my friends to people that I am close with. I have many acquaintances, both past and present that have sent friends requests and I have denied them. I also deny all of my kids' friends-- no one under the age of 21 on my FB! I have some friends that are not always family friendly! (and some are the ones that I met here!) The only exception is my 14 year old daughter-- she is only allowed to have FB if I am on her friend list-- but she is "hidden" from seeing my wall.

 

[LoriABil]

If she was a good friend (from back in the day) send her a request. She may have thought she sent it to the wrong person if you took a while to answer. That is what happened to me and a close friend from Middle School who had moved away...She thought she may have had the wrong last name, and took her request off. I sent her a request - and, well, it's noce to be connected again.

As for denying requests, I find it easier to accept the request, then block them. That way, they don't know I'd rather not see their 10 zillion Mafia Wars posts.

 

[Silent1CB]

Yes, my FIL. Twice.

 

[kidzmom3]

I ignore all the time. Why would I want casual acquaintances to see my pictures, my updates and some of the info I post about my life. If I wouldn't stop and show/talk to you about something in real life, why would I on facebook.

 

[ORMom2Four]

t

 

[MrsJackSparrow4Life]

Is your page set to private by any chance? I know I have been sent some facebook requests were I couldn't clearly see who the person was by the picture (I'm horrible with remembering names) and they had their page set to private so I couldn't figure out who they were. If I'm not totally 100% sure I know you, I'm not adding you so these people get refused.

 

[SDFgirl]

My brother's long-term girlfriend (who is like my sister) won't accept my friend request, so I won't even try! She's very vocal about the fact that she only accepts friend requests from her friends who live overseas...basically the ones that she never really sees in person. That's her way to stay in touch with them.

I have another friend who won't accept friend requests unless she is really and truly good friends with the person. She has only 35 friends on FB (while most people I know have over 200) and she likes it that way. A casual friend wouldn't cut it with her.

Sorry your feelings were hurt - people use FB in all different ways and have different criteria for who they accept. I'd try not to take it personally.

 

[Handbag Lady]

I admit I tend to refuse people who I haven't been friends with in years. Mainly, people I went to High School with and people I worked with 20 years ago.

I don't know how to say this without sounding mean, but there is a reason why I'm not friends with everyone on the planet. I don't mind at all a friendly chat if I run into them in real life. I AM happy to see them then.

But, I don't really need to know what they are doing every time they update and I don't need to know how well they are doing on say, FrontierVille. Or that they are on vacation in Hawaii again or ... EVERY TEN SECONDS. I graduated with a class of 800. I knew a LOT of people in High School.

I KNOW I can go through and block their posts on my main page and then block certain applications from showing up, but frankly, I don't want to go through all of that hassle.

It is far easier to just click ignore.

And I'm fairly certain they are not horrible people and all have lovely lives. I just don't need to keep track of 200 people I might talk to once or twice a decade.