Friend me and I'll explain it all.

I think you understand it fine. You're using it the way you want/need. Those people who are competing for 'most friends on fb' need a real life.

I don't get Facebook and I don't want Facebook. So, don't get upset if I don't reply to your friend request (you know who I'm addressing this to).

Facebook is whatever you want it to be. I also get lots of friend requests from people I either hardly or don't know and I ignore them all. I use it pretty much the same way you do.

To answer your question: yes, it is some kind of contest. Everyone knows that the more friends you have on Facebook, the more important you must be. Apparently. It's just that I don't live in that universe.

I'm fairly promiscuous about sending friend requests (or used to be, when I was out and about more) and it's not about the friend count really. Just an effort to keep in touch with more people cause all sorts of serendipitous things happen occasionally. I wish a dude happy birthday after having added him a while ago to do a project for him and he comes back and asks if I'm available for something else. I add this chick after seeing her at one event and two years later we're established acquaintances just by virtue of messaging, being in the same city occasionally, stuff like that.

So maybe your 'social personality type' is just different. And technology can't really mediate that, it's up to the sender and receiver to figure out what to do. If you don't want to add them you hit no and everybody goes on with their life, sounds like a good deal to me.

This guy I work with is unnerving me these days though by saying "I saw your status message".. if it's something vaguely related to work I don't want people I work with seeing it! I guess the solution there (beyond just dropping or limiting his access to my fb) is to stay a bit more muzzled or express things in a more generic manner.

Yeah, I'm not obsessive about it, but like Firas I do use Facebook as an extension of 'networking', in that I'll add people or accept requests even if I've only just met them, or had a conversation with them. I also use it (separately, in my mind) to keep in touch with people I would actually consider 'friends' rather than just 'acquaintances' or 'contacts', and it's fine if you do just that with it, and ignore friend requests from people whom you don't consider real friends.

I've given up on trying to moderate my friend requests. Maybe I just know more actively annoying people than most, but when I unfriend people, the most annoying ones always notice and try to come back. Now I just friend, hide, and forget. That works for a lot of people.

Friend me and I'll explain it all.

This is why I wish MeCha had a "Like" button. ;- )

Actually I get what Firas is talking about. My job doesn't involve drumming up business from acquaintances, etc.

My brother is a financial planner. EVERY person I trip across on fb that I would consider friending, he is already friends with. But that's because the better connected he is, the more business he gets. That makes sense for him.

But for me, not so much.

I get it, Doohickie, and I agree that it just means you're using it differently than some of your cohort.

Not a big deal, just a personal preference for how you use the medium. Think how differently different people use (for example) the phone: some people like to have long meandering chats, some people prefer to keep phonecalls brief and brisk. Most of us use the phone one way for some contacts and another way for others.

I turn down almost every friend request I get. If I don't A) know you well or B) see you regularly, I probably don't want to be FB friends. This means I end up turning down all the blog friends who find me on FB, too. For them, I usually send a little note explaining that, for now, I'm restricting my FB circle to people I know face-to-face, and i acknowledge that it's pretty arbitrary. I'm still examining my reasons for doing that, and it may well change.

Is it some kind of contest?

A real-life friend recently implied that it's sad I only have ~60 Facebook friends. I laughed and refrained from saying that, from my viewpoint, it's sad that she has ~1000. But it's not really sad; it's just reflective of how differently we use the thing, the same way we enjoy different kinds of parties: she like a big crowd, I like a small gathering.

Also, a lot of the games work like pyramid schemes...you get things by signing up others. I had a high school teacher friend me just to spam me on game requests.

See, I don't even get what those game requests are about. When I get them I assume they aren't really to me (and maybe that's true).

I don't really understand the games either, although Mr. Arkham is a Farmville addict. I just block all the games as the requests come in.

I don't bother with any of the games, and I hide every one that my friends are involved with. I also don't accept friend requests from someone I truly have no interest in seeing what's up with their lives. I have a few FB friends from here - and since I drop in there much more than here these days, it's nice to keep up. But on the whole, if you aren't someone I know or want to know, I don't friend you.