Facebook friends request....ugh

[Renesmee]

I am one of those people that only want real friends on my facebook page. I know some people confirm friends just so they can have a high friend count. What's the point?

I have been befriended by a lot of old classmates from elementary school. It's been great because these people seeking ME out, were not very friendly to me in school. One girl asked to be my friend and I fell over in shock! We used to be friends in 6th grade, and then she just became nasty towards me. I did befriend her, and she is very active on my wall. Asking about my kids, and we play Farmtown together. It' great because my DS is having a tough time with kids in school, so I can show him that we all grow up, and people change.

Well, that being said, I joined a group about my hometown. I grew up here, and it's a small town. Many kids grow up, get married and raise their kids here. It's just one of those towns. So the group is called "I'm a [town name] Kid. I joined the group and posted on the wall. Now I am getting all kinds of friends request fom people I don't even know! I am not interested in having complete strangers on my friends page.

Does this happen to you?

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

It happens to everyone. Just ignore them.

 

[FormrCastMbr]

I have gotten a couple stranger requests...basically people with the same last name. I ignore those. The strangest was my ex-husbands current wife. I divorced the guy, don't want to be friends with his new wife...and he has told me they are talking about divorce. It would be like the Ex Wives Club!

 

[Renesmee]

I have gotten a couple stranger requests...basically people with the same last name. I ignore those. The strangest was my ex-husbands current wife. I divorced the guy, don't want to be friends with his new wife...and he has told me they are talking about divorce. It would be like the Ex Wives Club!

LOL! Maybe she wants a comrade?

My neice cracked me up one day. She told me she did a search for her name (first and last) and found two other girls with the same name as hers. She befriended both of them. One girl is 17 and talks to her regularly. She said it is weird to get her status updates, because for a second it will confuse her.

 

[sorcerormickey]

I only Friend people I know IRL or from the DIS. Most of the people I have re-connected with thru FB, I contact them outside of FB.

I have been getting some really wacky ones from the Farm Town discussion board tho. People send me a Friend Request and when I ask them who they are they say "Oh I saw your name on the FT boards and I thought I'd Friend you." Ummm....no thanks! Just some random person. Then some people get offended that I don't accept! Wackos.

 

[SKWDW]

I'm with you. The total stranger requests creep me out a bit.

I told one of my best friends from high school about someone else with the same First MI Last Name as her. She "friended" her and found that even their middle name was the same. Like the poster above mentioned, it's a little weird to get a message or wall post from someone with the exact same name.

Keep in mind that FB pushes "suggested friends" at users. Some people might just click on your name to friend you instead of the X to get rid of the prompt.

 

[MushyMushy]

I accept almost every friend request and I'm so glad I do! Usually I'll keep them on there a couple of days to see if there is some sort of connection, and then if there isn't, I restrict my information. It's also not that I want a ton of friends, but I play Mafia Wars and you need a lot of people to be successful at it.

By doing that, I found a niece and two nephews I didn't know existed! I know that doesn't happen to everyone, but it keeps me accepting the friend requests.

 

[raysnkaysmom]

I'm one of those people who 'feels bad' if I turn down a friend request....
but, just know, if you just let the request sit in your box...and never ignore or confirm.... maybe they just think you havent seen it

I think only the young teens are concerned about the 'high friend count'.. I have quite a few friends on mine...but they are mostly family,friends, coworkers and some DISers - No 'strangers'....

 

[The Mystery Machine]

It is posts like this that keep me from joining Facebook.

 

[raysnkaysmom]

It is posts like this that keep me from joining Facebook.

LOL, but it is really cool to see friend from high school...
and catch up on pictures.. I LOVE pictures

 

[paintnolish]

Haha!You can be the nicest person in the world, but, seriously, who has over 700 "friends"?
My boss friended me, which was awkward. I felt like I had to accept it, then he'd have all these crazy status updates and I swear to you one was about getting his ears waxed. Seriously. Then, one day I notices I wasn't getting them anymore. He "defriended" me. WTH? It was like not being invited to a party you didn't want to go to in the first place. He later said he felt like it wasn't appropriate. Well, duh!

 

[lovetoscrap]

I only friend people I know. I ignore the strangers. The harder one is some of my husbands relatives that I really have no desire to have them knowing my business. I use my Facebook a lot to talk to my sister and some of my friends. I am sure his aunts and cousins are mad at me for ignoring them them they aren't my FRIENDS!

I also had a friend request from my pastor. That one is still sitting there--not sure what to do on that one. He is a great guy and is a friend on my daughter's page--which I like! But I just don't feel like I want him on mine.

I also turn down requests from my daughter's friends or friend's children (with one exception). Again, if you aren't MY friend then you don't need to know that much about me!

 

[HelenePA]

I got a REALLY strange friends request.. I use to be active on "talkers" (basically chat rooms) when I was 17-18 that was 12-13 yrs ago. Some guy actually found me from on one of them! I had NO clue who he was. I deleted his request 2 times before he sent me a message telling me who he was and stuff.. who remembers people's names from that long ago? I added him as a friend but blocked him from seeing most of my stuff..

 

[raysnkaysmom]

I got a REALLY strange friends request.. I use to be active on "talkers" (basically chat rooms) when I was 17-18 that was 12-13 yrs ago. Some guy actually found me from on one of them! I had NO clue who he was. I deleted his request 2 times before he sent me a message telling me who he was and stuff.. who remembers people's names from that long ago? I added him as a friend but blocked him from seeing most of my stuff..

I need to learn how to block some people from stuff...
Well, actually I dont guess I have much to hide yet...but, we'll see
lol

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

You can restrict information on face book really well-just like in real life if you don't want your pastor to see your wild friday night pictures, when you're posting the pictures you pick who can see it, like, everybody, (I never recommend this for anything on fb!), friends and networks, friends of friends, just friends, just friends minus specific people, and you just minus a few specific people.

I had a coworker who would make comments (usually totally inappropriate) every time I changed my status. So, I put that friends MINUS this joker could see my status change. Voila. He has NO idea that he can't see status changes on my page. It just looks to him like I'm not talking much about what's going on.

I have 64 friends, all friends or family in real life, and it's awesome for keeping up with far flung family. And we've flung ourselves really far!

Just spend some time noodling around in the settings and work on locking it all down (default usually sets everything to wide open on fb), and then opening it up a little.

People have no idea when you de-friend them, it's hard to notice when you don't see somebody posting unless you're stalking them, lol. Especially the people who have, like, 700 friends, they'll never notice.

You also might want to consider not making your profile searchable by Google, that's in the account settings, too. I was shocked when my name and profile picture popped up on Google. Fixed that promptly. There's also a setting you want to mark that will not allow whatever applications you click on to pull all the info on your page for them to fiddle with, you want to opt out of that one too, a lot of those app companies are using the info to spam.

And stay away from farmtown, it's like crack for suburbanites.

ETA:

Here, I highly recommend this website, it teaches you quickly and easily how to protect yourself from unwanted weirdness on Facebook:

http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/

 

[wdwgirl03]

Haha!You can be the nicest person in the world, but, seriously, who has over 700 "friends"?

700 friends? That is nothing, I was just on my old roommate's facebook page and she has over 1000 friends. Funny thing is she probably is friends with/knows all of them...she was involved in so much in college and is in the Air Force so she's all over the place.

And I see someone just posted this but you can make your profile private so people can't add you and such.

Oh yeah, did anybody else see the article a few weeks ago about the guy and girl who met on facebook and got married? Apparently the girl did a search for people with her same name, found some guy, messaged him, and the rest is history! Crazy.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/07/20/national/a120446D30.DTL&tsp=1

Sorry for getting off-topic...

 

[BriarfoxinWA]

I love the friend requests from people I don't know. My HS graduating class has a couple of members on FB that are way too young to have been in our class. I keep getting friend requests from them and I just ignore them. I finally got fed up with the requests from women I don't know. If they have photos in bikini's or less I report them. I'm sure DH would love to have those friend requests but don't send them to me

 

[MushyMushy]

I love the friend requests from people I don't know. My HS graduating class has a couple of members on FB that are way too young to have been in our class. I keep getting friend requests from them and I just ignore them. I finally got fed up with the requests from women I don't know. If they have photos in bikini's or less I report them. I'm sure DH would love to have those friend requests but don't send them to me

OT, but that's not a purebred German Shepherd is it? It's not like any I've ever seen. He's beautiful! (so is the lab, but I have a special softness for GSD)

 

[BriarfoxinWA]

OT, but that's not a purebred German Shepherd is it? It's not like any I've ever seen. He's beautiful! (so is the lab, but I have a special softness for GSD)

Yes she's a purebred. The breeder I bought her from tends to breed for black or very dark colored dogs. She is a wonderfully lady and will guarantee her dogs for health/hip/elbow issues up to 5 years old. If you want to see some other pretty dogs her website is www.geyergermanshepherds.com

 

[redrosesix]

I am one of those people that only want real friends on my facebook page. I know some people confirm friends just so they can have a high friend count. What's the point?

I have been befriended by a lot of old classmates from elementary school. It's been great because these people seeking ME out, were not very friendly to me in school. One girl asked to be my friend and I fell over in shock! We used to be friends in 6th grade, and then she just became nasty towards me. I did befriend her, and she is very active on my wall. Asking about my kids, and we play Farmtown together. It' great because my DS is having a tough time with kids in school, so I can show him that we all grow up, and people change.

Well, that being said, I joined a group about my hometown. I grew up here, and it's a small town. Many kids grow up, get married and raise their kids here. It's just one of those towns. So the group is called "I'm a [town name] Kid. I joined the group and posted on the wall. Now I am getting all kinds of friends request fom people I don't even know! I am not interested in having complete strangers on my friends page.

Does this happen to you?

I actually only have friends and family on my Facebook ie. people I would normally want to get in touch with anyway.

It always surprises me when a friend of a relative tries to friend me, somebody I've never even met and may never meet. I just don't see the point in it. I hit ignore a few times and eventually they go away.