Facebook friendships with strangers.

[Coley]

I'm sorry I'm so late in returning to this thread. It has been such a hectic week. I appreciate everyone's insights. Up until now, I've had kind of a "keep it simple" policy where FB is concerned. I don't have friends set at different privacy settings, and if I don't know someone, I don't accept friend requests. That said, there's no reason why I couldn't try opening the door a bit more. I see no harm in friending my game opponent, and if things go awry, I can always change the settings or unfriend. Thanks, everyone. 

[lady_disdain]

That sounds like a good solution.

From a general perspective, there should be no problem telling someone "I don't use FB (or whatever) this way. I'm sorry." A reasonable person will accept that. Someone who doesn't is showing that they don't respect boundaries.

[siamesecat2965]

That sounds like a good solution.

From a general perspective, there should be no problem telling someone "I don't use FB (or whatever) this way. I'm sorry." A reasonable person will accept that. Someone who doesn't is showing that they don't respect boundaries.

I agree! I am in the camp of "if I don't know you, I don't friend you" The only exception to that rule was the partner of a friend from HS, who friended me. While I've never met her, her being with my friend is enough for me. We don't do more than like or comment on each other's posts, but that's fine.

Everyone else I either knew from school or some other point in my life, or is family. And I've actually hesitated and NOT friended the kids of my own cousins, since I've never met them, and thought well, maybe they might think its weird, or someone else might think it inappropriate. Even though I know people who friend anyone and everyone they ever came into contact with!

[MommyPenguin]

I generally only "Friend" people I know in real life.  However, I friended a person from these boards because I thought her posts were awesome.  I would occasionally comment on her posts and she'd comment on mine.  Then a friend of hers PMed me and said she enjoyed my responses to her friend's posts, and wondered if she could friend me.  So I ended up with a person one more step removed from me.  I felt like I knew her from reading her comments, so that helped.

What I've done more recently is to separate people I don't actually know IRL into "acquaintances" and real friends into "friends."  Then I can limit my posts to "friends" or "friends and acquaintances."  Usually I don't post anything that is particularly identifying, but occasionally I post about a local event or something and would rather not hand too much information away.

[Waltzing Matilda]

It seems to happen fairly regularly. A friend request will pop up and I'm pretty sure that I don't know the person. I will usually go into their profile to see if 1) it's a female that I do in fact know who has changed her name after getting married or 2) if they are also friends with a lot of my other facebook friends in which case I've probably actually met them but just don't remember or 3) it's some random stalker  . If I really don't know them, I just delete the request, with no explanation. You don't owe them anything. Having said that, I have accidentally clicked a 'Friend Request' button for someone I don't know - maybe they think I'm a random stalker.

[CaffeineKatie]

 I have 2 FB profiles--one for real life and one with my middle/maiden name for online friends from chatrooms and games. I use different email accounts for them as well.  I don't tell either group about the other; I am very selective about adding people to my "real" FB, and more "anyone can join" on my chat/game page (as long as they post politely).  Makes life MUCH simpler.