<p>So I've recently been spurned by a few people on facebook. The thing is, people seemed to be SO much more open to friend requests several years ago. Are people becoming more selective with their friends, or what?</p>
<p>Thing is, I've even been spurned by people who know who I am, and who are in the same classes/majors as me. A few years ago, this wouldn't have been an issue at all. We all seemed to accept friend requests even if we didn't know each other that well.</p>
<p>Maybe you’re just creepy</p>
<p>that’s because it used to be a contest to see who could get the most friends</p>
<p>I always say iRL first that I’m sending a request their way and it’s fine</p>
<p>Yeah, that seems like a personal problem.</p>
<p>I don’t add people I don’t know though unless there’s a possibility I met them and I don’t remember.</p>
<p>I think people are more open to “random” friend requests when they are new to Facebook or excited about starting college. I certainly was. Now I only accept requests from people who I actually want to share personal information with.</p>
<p>I’m still in high school, but I totally understand. My high school only has 130 people in it. My class is the largest with 44 people. I know them all and have had conversations with them all. One of the kids in my class simply wouldn’t accept my friend request… and I was curious why. He only has 304 friends and we have 178 friends in common. Anyways, one day after school, I was talking to him and so I started joking with him and I was like “Why won’t you accept my friend request?” And he basically said was just like I don’t know what you’re talking about. Anyways, I didn’t care, I was just curious. haha. But I went home and requested him again to see what he would do and he accepted. XD</p>
<p>I think some people get a trip out of declining others. It used to be cool to have 1000’s of friends. I think now people are more apt to have as little friends as possible. One girl in my class decided to defriend every girl in our school. I think she gets some power trip from that, but I don’t really understand why. I guess people just like to have the power to reject someone. It’s also an easier form of rejection. The person being rejected often doesn’t even realize they’re being rejected, because facebook doesn’t tell you. Youo have to actively check that you’ve been rejected. If you don’t really care, you might go back on their page and request them again thinking that you hadn’t already requested them. The person doing the rejecting is a lot less likely to reject you if you actually confront them, so I really think it’s just about power.</p>
<p>I don’t know about other people, but I’ve definitely become much more selective about which friend requests I accept. I used to accept friend requests from anybody I knew casually, but I didn’t like how my feed was filled with notifications about people I didn’t particularly care about and how people who barely knew me would know what was going on in my life without me telling them.</p>
<p>I went on a purging spree in senior year of high school and got rid of the vast majority of people I didn’t really talk to. People actually did notice, and some of them mentioned it to me. It gave them the impression that I didn’t like them, which wasn’t the case at all; I just didn’t know them well enough to want them as a facebook friend.</p>
<p>So, yeah, it may not be personal. Maybe the people you’re friend requesting are rejecting the request because they simply don’t consider you a friend.</p>
<p>Wow, good topic. </p>
<p>I’m not sure that I like facebook yet - this semester I tried it with some classmates and found it to be useless for the most part. In the end, I just ended up removing a few classmates because we didn’t talk at all and had next to nothing in common anyway. There were a few surprises where I thought I was getting along well with someone IRL and then they ended up playing the avoidance game on facebook.</p>
<p>I’d say the most awkward point at that was getting blocked from someone’s wall after asking them a class-related question. Ouch! </p>
<p>Anyway, my list isn’t that big - one of the things I still haven’t decided upon is if I want to merge my strictly online and strictly IRL presences together. We’re in a world where employers want to facebook friend you and dig into your private life, why should I leave things out in the open that aren’t relevant? </p>
<p>Sadly, with an intense college schedule and a community college with a crappy club scene, I haven’t found myself much to … I dunno… post about? I used to be into cosplay before I couldn’t afford doing that anymore, and the extra attention from that was actually awesome (whether it was positive or not XD)</p>
<p>I guess I’ll keep an open mind, seriously if someone I know finds me on fb and asks to friend me I happily accept ^^</p>
<p>One big problem with facebook is they use the term friend so casually.… perhaps this was one thing AOL got right with the term “buddy”.</p>
<p>Obviously you should accept all friend requests because the more facebook friends you have the more popular you will look…</p>
<p>man I hate people who facebook friend request someone immediately after they meet them</p>
<p>I say we should all fb friend ourselves! lol.</p>
<p>i hate facebook.</p>
<p>I proudly do not use it.</p>
<p>I do though have an account from years ago that at one time i went to remove but the whole process was ridiculous so i left if up. It gas no info or picture or anything. I just like to see how many non accepted friend requests i can get. I mean, I’ve never really accepted any, just for ****s and giggles.</p>
<p>Actually, if when you decline a FR it sent that user a message that said “so and so declined your friend request” i would probably turn around and decline them all Haha.</p>
<p>Anyway, facebook is stupid. Do whatever you want. Anyone that takes its etiquette seriously needs a wake up call</p>
<p>Like someone above me said, Facebook has a very, very loose definition of the word “friend.” Personally, I have a much stricter definition, and the vast majority of my Facebook network are really just acquaintances. I went on a huge “friending” spree when I first got a Facebook account and when I got into college. Now, I rarely initiate friend requests, and when I do, it’s usually to people I’ve met several times in social settings (and would like to get to know better because we clicked in some way) or to classmates with whom I get along. The latter type is useful for asking questions about class (it’s so much easier to say, “Find me on Facebook!” than to stand there for five minutes exchanging numbers when you have a class to attend). </p>
<p>I’ve declined a few Facebook requests from people I didn’t know particularly well (and, in some cases, have never heard of). I don’t feel particularly bad about it (I like now Fb just doesn’t tell you if your request hasn’t been accepted). </p>
<p>What I find a bit off-putting is when people bring up the whole Facebook friend issue during conversation after I’ve just met them (like saying, “Hey, I’m going to add you on Facebook”). I get the impression that they’re just really concerned with their friend count.</p>
<p>Being proud of not using Facebook really shows that you’ve got your priorities set straight.</p>
<p>Unless I KNOW I’ll never communicate with a person, I accept every friend request I get. I don’t know a good amount of the people on my Facebook because I normally meet them at parties, forget about them, then by default accept their requests the next day. I think exchanging Facebook pages is replacing exchanging phone numbers - writing a Facebook message to a new acquaintance, if you want to hang out or something, is more convenient than calling them, it seems. It doesn’t hurt to have too many Facebook friends, especially considering you can hide them from your newsfeed.</p>
<p>Saying that, I recently deleted about 300 friends - people whom I never talk to now and will never talk to in the foreseeable future.</p>
<p>I was once at a party, and before I had even gotten home a girl I was talking to friended me…</p>
<p>That being said, I am pretty liberal with my friend list. However, everyone I am friends with is at least someone I know OF. I went to a private high school, and so I’m friends with a lot of people I didn’t know personally, but because the school was so small everyone knew of each other pretty much. About twice a year I’ll go through my list and purge.</p>
<p>Funny story though – I lived in an apartment style dorm this year with two friends, and we had a random fourth roommate. In July I friended him, sent him a message saying I thought we were roommates, etc. He denied my request. Didn’t even ignore it, straight up denied it. Oh well. He was a weird dude.</p>
<p>When I joined Facebook a couple of months ago, it was solely for my college purposes (I was just accepted into my college and felt like I should have an account because the college was asserting its facebook presence very happily). Plus, a lot of friends had urged me from my freshman year to sign up for Facebook and I kept declining saying that I didn’t want to waste my time and there were much better things to do in life. </p>
<p>Anyway, turns out that I was bombarded with many friend requests the day I signed up. Some of the people were also from my college whom I yet have to meet. Being me, I blindly accepted everyone. A couple of months after I felt that there was too much of a focus into what I posted - as to say that others (the ones that I didn’t know irl) could easily look into MY personal life. That ****ed me off, naturally so I removed everyone I had never talked to. I didn’t bother to explain why. It’s my account. I can do whatever I want. As blatant as this sounds, it is true.</p>
<p>I think that it is wise to send a friend request to those whom you have talked to, at least once. Going into a blind requesting/accepting spree will not only make you feel like your privacy is at risk but also degrade you in other person’s eyes. I used to send invites to those that I didn’t know very well in the beginning. But then I had a moral judgment and stopped sending invites altogether. But I did meet a couple of very old friends on Facebook - so I guess it is good in terms of reuniting memories. Just my 2 cents.</p>