I don't friend those people. Some people use FB as a way to introduce their friends, but if it's terribly unlikely I'll ever be in the same town as that person, I don't feel the need to respond to the overture. Other people see it as a way to connect with people they know now or used to know and want to catch up with. Some people just use it gossip so they want as much access to as many people as possible. If your model for FB use does not include friending people you haven't met, likely will never meet, but whom a friend thinks you'd like, that's perfectly okay, you needn't accept the invitation.

People don't get an X rejected your friend request notification and no-one I know has gotten a "Hey, why didn't you friend me" message. But my sample is nearly all over 30 years old and maybe even mostly over 35 years old.

So I messaged him and asked him if I knew him, and he said that no, we didn't know each other and he was a friend of XXX and asked to friend me because she recommended me to him.

I wouldn't friend him.

He sounds like a collector, like someone who friends everyone whose name he's heard in conversation.

I am in the "less is more" camp, myself. I have two dozen people on my friend list. That might go as high as a hundred, at some point in the future. But I kind of doubt it.

Nope.

Some people friend everyone they have the least reason to just to get their friend count as high as they can. You don't need to accept friend requests unless you really want to.

I got a friend request last week from a New-York-based "freelance model" (a guy) who had 97 Friends, all of whom were female and considerably more attractive than I am. I didn't know him; we had no mutual friends. He seemed to be out to collect women Friends. It seemed really odd for a young, attractive guy to do that. I didn't accept the request.

ATTENTION FACEBOOK USERS: "FRIEND" IS NOT A VERB. THAT IS ALL.

Nope. And the best part it, he probably wouldn't even had remembered (had you not emailed him).

See, your mistake was in sending him a message. Now he knows you're ignoring him. If you hadn't made contact, he would have just been left to wonder (and forget).

I don't accept those either - I've been having a problem with friends I haven't seen in, oh, fifteen or so years who have since gotten married. I have no problem being friends with them - I was, and probably would be still friends friends with them. However, a few of their wives, whom I've never met, persistently try to friend me, which I think is weird. If I met them at some point, yeah, but I don't know these people and their partners haven't introduced them to me. Odd.

I've also had a slight stalker-ish thing happen where someone who was a jerk in high school but whom I hung out with for a while tried friending me. He's pretty manipulative, negative and has a number of friends that I have no interest in reconnecting with, nor do I want them to know where I am or what I'm doing.

So for a while, he'd try to friend me once per week or so and I'd click Ignore. Finally I got sick of that, so I clicked "Block this Person." Great!

Except that he sent me mail through Facebook trying to shame me into friending him ('oh, you must not be getting my invites, or if you are ignoring them, I'm sorry about that because I really miss you and hope you are doing well'). Needless to say I haven't responded in anyway, but I would have thought that if a person is blocked in FB, they wouldn't be able to send mail to you. Yuck.

Facebookemon?

dershins: it's a modern verb which specifically means "designate as a friend or contact on a social networking system". Do you run around shouting that "mouse" isn't a verb when someone instructs a person to mouse over a button and click? How is telephone a verb, when really, you're using the telephone to make a call to someone? Telephone (or 'phone) is a noun.

Technology brings new tools to the world and new tools bring new words. Language, it's an amazing and versatile thing.

I am making a lot of typos today.

With very few exceptions, if I don't know you I don't friend you. OTOH my husband friended folks on my friend list that he doesn't know (some of you bunnies are in that category.) But it's okay as he is a harmless fuzzball.

As previously stated, some people are a bit freer with their "friending." I guess there is nothing wrong with that, but not my style.

(If someone friends me and my husband knows them I go ahead and friend them, stuff like that, but if I can't sniff out a connection, then nope.)

In the past I would friend that person but now I don't even bother sending them a message.

This is exactly why I closed my facebook account. First people I knew found me, great, then people who knew me through my site, okay that's great too - then it all spiraled out of control where every person ever to host an ad-site friended me, okay fine, and loads of creepy people that I've managed to avoid since high school found me and messaged me for friend requests every day. It all became a bit of a blur, and I shut it down because Not befriending people who knew me through my site would make me a rude stuckup host, but really I don't need them to know when I'm taking my daughter to the dentist or what I looked like when I was 17 (as tagged in high school mates punk band photos). Sure sure there's privacy settings but then there's ten million messages in that inbox every day and gaaah. Did not want to deal. Thus delete.

I don't friend those people, either. Facebook is for real friends only. At least mine is, anyway.

Ha, I just logged into my Facebook, and what do you know- a friend request from someone I don't recognize, who is a friend of 10 of my friends. Reject request.

ATTENTION FACEBOOK USERS: "FRIEND" IS NOT A VERB. THAT IS ALL.

Let me direct your attention to one of our best recent threads:

Sentences that would have been gibberish twenty years ago.

My question is, is there a subtle component of Facebook etiquette that I'm lacking?

No.

On FaceBook I have a really simple policy - I only connect to people I know in real life. Now that is up to me to determine: there are a number of MetaChatters that I "know" regardless of never having met them, and people I met once at conferences and so on. But I don't want any friends on FaceBook that I don't have some RL personal connection with. It's busy enough already and I'm not looking to accumulate contacts like bumper stickers or Girl Scout badges or anything.

On Twitter I have a totally opposite philosophy. I follow people I think are interesting and friends, and I don't care who follows me.

For me this is the way the Twitter/FB difference is shaking out. I really like keeping FB for my real-life community because it does have decent boundaries for that. But I like reaching out to random, new connections, and I use Twitter for that. I'm not that interested in converging the styles at this point so I keep 'em separate.

But to your question, hell no. There's absolutely no reason to connect to people you're not interested in connecting with. A mutual friendship is nice, but not a reason to be connected, in my book.

I don't even have to read the "more inside." Whenever you must ask this question, the answer is always no.

I've accepted friend requests from a few people I haven't met, and they generally have worked out, but you certainly don't need to 'friend' anyone you don't want to.

I'd ignore.

Remember that if you message them they are allowed to see your profile for a month.

I don't even have to read the "more inside." Whenever you must ask this question, the answer is always no.

Yup.

don't friend them. besides being a possible collector of friends, there are other people who attempt to gleam info about you and possibly break into accounts. i don't have the link but last week there was a story about someone who accepted all friend and one of them broke into his account reset his status message to 'am stranded, some please send me money to get back to my flight' and a ton of his actual friend called him at home concerned. the guy found his account had been reset to a password he didn't have and couldn't break back in without a huge process from the administrators.

i don't let random folks in my door either, screw them.

I use facebook for campaigning, professional contacts and getting jobs. It sucks because I can't post there when I am having an anxiety attack or whatver.

by the grace of god: You could set up a second, personal account that's only visible to the friends that you choose. You could even use a pseudonym. I know a couple of people who do this.

Heh, I just dumped some people from my friends list because I don't really know them - I hesitated doing this for ages and then just decided that I really don't give a fuck if they are offended because I don't know them, so why should I care? I've also decided to ignore any new requests unless I actually know the person individually (if that makes sense).

With the exception of taz, I only link to people who I've met in real life.