how to deal with primary school friends adding me to facebook?

Aldo

So this is probably not an issue any more in the US, but over here Facebook has only just become the #1 social networking site. This comes with a little problem for me: kids I went to school with 15-20 years ago are adding me to their friendslist.

The first one who did this was a guy I really liked way back when, but we only went "oh my havent seen you in aaaaaages" and haven't really said anything besides a mutual "so what are you up to?" To put it bluntly, he isn't a friend of me any more and I feel conflicted about having him on my friendslist.

Now two other kids (ok, they're in their 20s now) I used to play tag with added me.

I dunno if I should add them and move them to a list of folks who don't get my status updates or if I shouldn't accept their requests. I'm a big fan of moving forward and not looking back, but I am also flattered they added me. I'm cynical that is because they felt like I was a cool kid back then, maybe they're the kind of people who think 3,000 friends is a goal in life.

I'm looking for opinions. How did you deal with primary schoolmates adding you to social networking sites? What do you do with these people?

ceres

I'm at the point now where if I'm not interested I just hit "ignore". There aren't a whole lot of people from my past I'm interested in communicating with.

bowen

I wouldn't, they're not your current friend. Tell them facebook is for your close friends and family members and ask them for an AIM name or something, that way the "hey","hey","what's up?","nothing much, you?","nothing" strings of messages can stay there.

Mojo_Jojo

I think most people just initially add everybody they even vaguely know when they first set up an account. Then a month or two down the line, you do a cull and streamline it.

If you haven't been interacting with these people, then they won't even notice you've done it.

Darkewolfe

Play with your privacy settings. Set up a block for "acquaintances" which has strictly limited access to things like viewing your profile picture and basic bio information (assuming you already have strict limits on people who aren't friends). Add anyone who friends you that you don't actually want to communicate with to your friends list under this setting. This is a very typical, common way for young professionals to handle facebook. Often times you friend many people you've met, because social networking also means maintaining a method of communication with people you might need to network with, or simply don't want to offend.

Rayze

Mojo_Jojo wrote: »

I think most people just initially add everybody they even vaguely know when they first set up an account. Then a month or two down the line, you do a cull and streamline it.

If you haven't been interacting with these people, then they won't even notice you've done it.

Freshman year of college, I got into Facebook and discovered I could find all the elementary school friends I had back in the day (long story short, I moved in 5th grade and haven't had good social experiences since except in college). I would add or whisper those people I hadn't seen in almost ten years and it would be great since I could hold on to my past a little bit longer

Eventually, I realized that aside from the initial "Hey, how are you?" conversation, I had barely talked to these people. It wasn't healthy to cling to the past and the chances of seeing or talking to them face-to-face was minimal so I started to delete them. I've been doing that with people I haven't talked to for a while, even high school and college classmates (I'm almost two years out of college)


Anyway, it's perfectly fine to have a reconnecting conversation but it's also acceptable to ignore their friendship requests. It's kind of cool to see a face you haven't seen in a long time but don't feel pressured to accept every request that comes your way

Aldo

Darkewolfe wrote: »

Play with your privacy settings. Set up a block for "acquaintances" which has strictly limited access to things like viewing your profile picture and basic bio information (assuming you already have strict limits on people who aren't friends). Add anyone who friends you that you don't actually want to communicate with to your friends list under this setting. This is a very typical, common way for young professionals to handle facebook. Often times you friend many people you've met, because social networking also means maintaining a method of communication with people you might need to network with, or simply don't want to offend.

I have LinkedIn for professional contacts and the odd bird who adds me to facebook goes on the "professional folks" list and doesn't get to see a thing about what I'm doing.

These are not professional contacts, though, so I don't have to play nice I guess.

--

Thanks for your opinions, everyone. I guess there's no ideal solutions, but feel free to post your solution here.

CelestialBadger

People just do this out of curiosity about what their old school friends are up to. They don't really want to be friends again, they just want to see how life turned out for those kids they used to know. Add them or not, it doesn't matter and they won't be offended. If you are curious yourself you can add them, then remove them in a couple of weeks when you have both satisfied your curiosity about how things turned out - they probably won't even notice.

Shazkar Shadowstorm

yeah i mean i added my best friend from 2nd grade who i didn't talk to really after i went to private school in 3rd grade etc, and all that, i have all these random friends
celestialbadgers idea is a good idea, they wont notice if you remove them a while later

though i don't really care if people i knew 15 years ago see what i'm up to, ain't even a thing, the vast majority of people on my facebook are acquaintances

it's not really a big deal either way whether you accept or ignore

no one will really care, it's just facebook

Lachrymite

I accepted the requests of a few people I hadn't spoken to in 15+ years and I almost universally have regretted them because we have absolutely nothing in common anymore. I now just ignore all the others.

Underdog

I relished those friend requests. I always gleefully pressed ignore. But then I'm an asshole.

Don't feel bad about rejecting the requests. I mean, you don't have to enjoy it as much as I do but it's perfectly acceptable to ignore them. It's not like they get a message saying "Aldo has ignored your request."

Zombiemambo

You should panic.

Aphostile

Just ignore them if you don't want to talk to them or have them see what's going on in your life.

I think people put far too much thought into social networking, especially Facebook/MySpace. Just because you accepted someone's friend request it doesn't mean you're obligated to do anything, or that it even means anything. Really, who cares?

Shazkar Shadowstorm

Aphostile wrote: »

Just ignore them if you don't want to talk to them or have them see what's going on in your life.

I think people put far too much thought into social networking, especially Facebook/MySpace. Just because you accepted someone's friend request it doesn't mean you're obligated to do anything, or that it even means anything. Really, who cares?

yeah, basically this

listen to him

no one really cares, if you feel like ignoring, ignore. accepting a friend request means nothing.

EWom

I like to keep people in Facebook limbo forever. You know they are a real friend if they actually call you and ask you what the fuck your problem is and why you won't accept their facebook friend.

However that backfired once, when my aunt called up and bitched me out about keeping my cousin in facebook limbo

jedikuonji

If you had wanted to reconnect with any of these people, you would have already done so through other means.

LaCabra

I have something like 35 friend requests amassed from people who I don't really like, but they like me, and I kind of would feel bad about clicking "ignore", so I just actually ignore them.
It's kind of weird I guess.

Avicus

It depends. Do you want to be one of the people that has hundreds and hundreds of 'friends' on your facebook page? Nearly everyone I know adds anyone and anything that they have even the slightest connection to, its annoying. I keep mine down to friends who I actually talk to. Feels so much better. I can read the recent updates wall quickly instead of sifting through hundreds of people liking stupid shit and just random crap.

strebalicious

I used to accept my old high school friends. Then I just realized all they do is tag all their friends in photos that are really just flyers for their "business", or blindly invite me to stuff like their trip to Black Bike Week.

Needless to say, I had no qualms with removing them all from my Facebook.

lonelyahava

I have added a good chunk of high school 'friends' to my facebook. That being said, some of them I get along with better now over facebook than I ever did in high school.

for others, it's become a way of saying 'hey, that's what so and so did'.

and others, I've been threatened within an inch of my life if I didn't accept them (the real best friend from forever and ever).

I see it as a high school reunion that I can attend in my pyjamas.

I ignore some, I laugh at some, I outright want to stab others. But then I remember, I'm just as happy as they are, if not happier, and I move on.


If you dont' want to deal with it, jsut ignore them. They won't even notice. they'll probably in a few months time cull you off their list as a 'man, why did i add them' thing and you won't even know.

Gafoto

Ignore them.

This thread reminded me to clean out my friends list. I probably unfriended close to 20 people.

Dehumanized

it's okay, you won't offend someone you haven't seen for 15 years by not being internet friends with them

and if they do get offended, it's okay

you haven't seen them for 15 years

The_Glad_Hatter

What i do is, instead of ignoring them, i let them remain in my request queue indefinitely. That way they can't re-request (because their first message is still pending).
But they can't see that you blocked their first attempt because when they go to your profile they also see that their request is still pending.

Requests drop out of your queue after one year, by which time the person will have forgotten all about you.
tadaa.

Zoolander

I just add them if I still remember who they are. I don't really care that much who sees my pretty rare Facebook posts, they're innocuous. If somebody does things that are annoying enough to warrant action, I just remove them. On the flipside, sometimes I find out that some of those long lost acquaintances turned out to be doing/visiting cool/interesting things/places so I enjoy finding out about that.

erraticrabbit

Who posts personal things on facebook that would make it matter if someone was on your friendslist or not?

I generally accept people who I know at all. They learn what I watch on tv and I get to see who's getting fat.

The whole thing is really a 'what im doing' christmas card

Regina Fong

I'm facebook friends with several people I went to elementary school/middle school with. Most of them are moms now, and their status updates are inane (but completely inoffensive). I think I'm going to follow the suggestion here and cordon them off into a separate privilege level.

Blake T

erraticrabbit wrote: »

Who posts personal things on facebook that would make it matter if someone was on your friendslist or not?

I generally accept people who I know at all. They learn what I watch on tv and I get to see who's getting fat.

The whole thing is really a 'what im doing' christmas card

This is pretty much my opinion of facebook as well. I mean is your facebook that private that you need to stop people looking at it?

The only person I have ignored is a creepy stalker lady.

Because she would stalk me.

If there is anyone I don't like because they post dumb stuff I would put them on ignore.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

Why do you feel conflicted about having them on your friends list?

Being "friends" on facebook doesn't necessarily mean anything other than "oh yeah I met them this one time." If you're interested in reading their status updates or otherwise reconnecting with them, fine, friend away. Otherwise, who cares.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

There are actually lots of people I've purposefully declined being friends with, but that's because I do some professional stuff on facebook and I don't need some of my more colorful acquaintances' posts showing in places some less colorful (or differently colorful) acquaintances might see them. Facebook's privacy settings are such that I could regulate this from the control panel and be "friends" with all of them, but I figure, why take chances.

My circumstances in this case probably aren't very applicable to your dilemma anyway.

Viscountalpha

Your personal facebook should be with people you want to talk to. You can always ignore then but still send a message to them and be friendly.

poshniallo

I think I approach this very differently from all of you.

If someone I like or used to like wants to friend me I say yes.

If for some reason someone I don't like or never liked asks I hit ignore.

Then they stay on my friend list and see my status updates and stuff.

Doesn't bother me whether I have 3 friends or 3000. Why would having too many facebook friends matter? How does it affect you whether all of those 'friends' are close busom buddies or not?

So I say hit yes and don't worry about it.

I don't want to cast aspersions or argue with anyone in H&A, but it does seem a little OCD or neurotic to worry about it at all.

So what if your 'facebook friends' are not really friends?

Kyougu

Yeah, some of you guys put way more stock into facebook than I do. I just add anyone that adds me. My facebook is pretty inane so I'm sure they end up regretting more than I do.

erraticrabbit

I just realized I'm very strange. There are people on my fb I really really dislike. I have had to remove a few people for saying stupid things on my wall though, since the jobs I apply for... require good moral standing or something. there is that to be careful about.

So hey, I realized what my advice is. As long as they don't make you look bad, there shouldn't be too much harm. Just generally keep the info locked down

illig

Jeebus. Wait until your boss, or your mom's friends start adding you...

MagicPrime

I am amazed that people put this much thought into their facebook friends list.

I do a Social Networking crash-course every few months for older people getting into new tech. It's amazing how paranoid some of these people are when it comes to Social Networking.

They would rather be shot and arrested then have a facebook profile and put in a status update.

Aldo

illig wrote: »

Jeebus. Wait until your boss, or your mom's friends start adding you...

My "professional folks" list holds these people. They can't see a thing.

--

I use facebook to keep up to date on people I actually keep in touch with and whom I like. I have ~80 people on it, with about 5 of them on my "professional folks" list. I like to take a peek at the places they're going to and their successes and will mail them to ask how they're doing besides their successes. Or meet with them IRL of course.

I guess this makes me a different user of the website than most of you here. I ended up ignoring the requests and putting the other primary school friend on my "professional folks" list for a while. If nothing happens I'll delete him soonish.

Darkewolfe

Aldo wrote: »

illig wrote: »

Jeebus. Wait until your boss, or your mom's friends start adding you...

My "professional folks" list holds these people. They can't see a thing.

--

I use facebook to keep up to date on people I actually keep in touch with and whom I like. I have ~80 people on it, with about 5 of them on my "professional folks" list. I like to take a peek at the places they're going to and their successes and will mail them to ask how they're doing besides their successes. Or meet with them IRL of course.

I guess this makes me a different user of the website than most of you here. I ended up ignoring the requests and putting the other primary school friend on my "professional folks" list for a while. If nothing happens I'll delete him soonish.

This is basically what I do. Honestly, I use facebook as an RSS feed to share links with friends, then keep everyone else on viewing limits just so that we can all see who lives and works where, so as to reach out when appropriate. I might not want to talk on a regular basis to someone I haven't spoken to since middle school, but if I happen to be traveling in their city it's useful to quickly realize that and see if they want to grab a beer or whatever.

LewieP's Mummy

illig wrote: »

Jeebus. Wait until your boss, or your mom's friends start adding you...

This made me laugh!

My facebook is as private as I can make it - mainly because of my job, though, I don't want to be hounded by the people I train, and also cos we're not allowed to use facebook at work. I'm only friends with people I'm friends with irl, and ignore requests from most people. I'm not unfriendly, I just choose carefully who has access to it.

JohnnyCache

I friend almost everyone. Usually my attitudes and replies weed out the ones that don't belong on my friends list