An open letter to the facebook using public:

[heystasa]

Look. If I've never met you, then we probably aren't friends, and so I'm not going to accept your friend request. Especially if you don't even have the courtesy to introduce yourself. Even if we have mutual friends, it's not going to happen. If you can't be arsed to say how you know me and why you think I should friend a complete stranger, then piss off. Even something like, "I'm a friend of Lucy's, she's mentioned you before and I thought you sounded cool" would be enough. I don't even care if you ignore me after that point - given that I don't like facebook and rarely spend any time with it, I probably won't even notice. If you don't do this, I'm going to assume you've added me just because you want to up your numbers, and I hate people who do that.

If I have met you, but we disliked each other, or didn't interact with each other, then this too implies that we are not friends, and so, once again, I'm not going to accept your request. Especially, once again, if you can't be arsed to say hi. If I didn't like you or hang out with you in school, I'm probably not going to want to do so now, especially given that we live in different towns, and so have even less in common and less actual motivation to get on then we did before. If you do add me, knowing full well that we never were friends and will probably never grow to be so, I'm going to assume you've done so just because you want to up your numbers, or because you don't understand the basic definition of the word "friends", or that you have no understanding of personal boundaries, and, once again, I hate people like that.

If we were really good friends in kindergarden, I'll add you back. If you were in my class for a couple of months in year eleven and we never really spoke or clicked, I won't.

If you are a friend of my sister's and introduce yourself or she's told me about you, I'll add you back. If you were in her year and a collosal cow to her, but not openly bitchy to me, I won't.

If we've only met breifly once or twice, but those meetings were pleasant, I'll add you back. If I knew you for years and we never really liked each other, I'll wonder what the hell is wrong with you, but possibly add you back if I have no active animosity towards you. Note the "possibly". If I knew you for  years and we barely spoke, I won't bother. If I knew you for years and only ever saw you behaving like a complete jackass to me and others, I won't.

If you've never met me and don't introduce yourself, I'll either ignore you or message you asking how you know me. Here's a tip on that one by the way; replying with, "we don't [know each other], but we could chat on facebook chat, if you like...", is pretty much a sure fire way to guarantee that I'll ignore you in the future. Especially if you live in another freaking country. I don't have facebook because I want to meet new people, I have it for the sake of the people I already know, and you going through the profiles of people who bare no connection to you whatsoever, and who don't even share many interests with you, is freaking creepy. You want someone to chat to, go to an actual chatroom. Or, if you do want to chat with a complete stranger, at least introduce yourself properly.

In short, don't "friend" me unless we are, in some very loose sense of the word, actual frigging friends.

Furthermore, manners matter, even online, and manners involve telling me who the hell you are before you presume to insinuate yourself into my friends list. My friending criteria actually isn't that strict: one nicely worded message or any tiny bit of positive regard in the past twenty years will probably get you in. I don't think either of these things are unreasonably illogical or overly demanding. 

And if you just want a big friends list, then feck off and get some bloody perspective, you shallow, moronic little twit.

Thankyou, and goodnight.


PS., Also, I hate facebook. Just, like, in general.

Comments

[3771.livejournal.com]

I don't have facebook because I want to meet new people, I have it for the sake of the people I already know, and you going through the profiles of people who bare no connection to you whatsoever, and who don't even share many interests with you, is freaking creepy.

this kills me all the time - people using facebook as a social networking site. i mean, sure, that's the idea, but it's like... i don't want to meet new people through facebook! if i've met them at a party then add them, i'd like to get to know them, so it's good like that. but i don't want to meet people through a website that has all my details on it, that's just friggin' weird

[sjazzmreow.livejournal.com]

EXACTLY. There are plenty of sites for meeting strangers, facebook isn't one of them. Gaaah!

[sjazzmreow.livejournal.com]

See, this is sort of why I hate the internet age. There seem to be people out there that think being "friends" on facebook or something similar is equivalent to being friends in real life. Unless you've actually engaged in positive relations with someone (which can happen online, but sitting idle on someone's friends list - which you're possibly only on in the first place because you might have met briefly that one time - probably isn't the best way), you can't really be surprised that they don't feel that strongly for you.

On the bright side though, if you wanted to just outright tell this guy what an arse you think he is and why you defriended him (though I'd recommend ignoring him or just saying something about wanting to keep your list small and for close friends and people you see on a regular basis), facebook does provide a convienient messaging feature, so you can avoid any of that nasty face-to-face guilt!! :D The online stalking, spamming, and trashtalking that may occur as a result of said message, however, is entirely not the fault of the makers of facebook at all, nu-uh.

[glitterfairy25.livejournal.com]

Ahh, you see, I use face to stalk to be nosy with all the people I went to school with. Just seeing how they're getting on, who's still going out with who, who's come out, who's been travelling... all that stuff. As long as I can rememeber them, I'll friend them, and accept friends back. And I'm "friends" with all sorts of people too: my dancing teacher, my english teacher, my cousins, my friend's housemates.... heck, even my mum. One guy friended me 'cause he'd met me for ten minutes while he was talking to one of his friends I was hanging out with!

I guess facebook is just a different thing for different people, eh?

Also, *WAVES* just because.

[sjazzmreow.livejournal.com]

No no, actually all of those sorts of connections are exactly what I do approve of using facebook for! I have a whole bunch of facebook friends that I've only met once, hardly know, am indifferent towards, or haven't seen in years, and most of my family is on it (seriously, there are so many people on my FB friends list that share my surname it's ridiculous. And I've learnt so much about them that way! Apparently, one of my cousins-in-law is a bisexual pagan who is studying psych (my subject) through distance education, AND she can and does spell well and has obscure taste in movies and TV. I knew none of this).

What I object to though, is when people that I'm the *opposite of friends to* friend me. If, like, I know them, but they were bitchy to me, or I've met them, but only in the abstract sort of "we went to the same school but never spoke and I have absolutely no interest in your life and you can offer me no information that I couldn't gather elsewhere" kind of way. It just... makes no sense to me. What the hell do these people want to see what I'm up to for? I think a lot of people do use it differently to me, which is fine, but, well, someone's got to do the YOU DAMN KIDS GET OF MY LAWN thing about it, right?

And, hiiiiiiiii *WAVES BACK*

[glitterfairy25.livejournal.com]

That's alright then :P I tend to add anyone who I want to see what's going on in their lives. My mum and dad and sister are on it, much to my concern. So many incriminating pictures! :S It's always funny when you see what someone's like now compared to how you saw them last and sometimes it's so difficult to stop yourself from going "oh my god!"

Just as a side note, man PSYCHOLOGY is awesome. Yay for Psych! \o/

"opposite of friends to", lol. There are some people that I'm friends with on there that I've never really spoken to. We were in the same academic year for at least 6 years though, so there's something there, I guess. The general mood at school was just that everyone friended everyone else. Even the teachers :S

IMO, sometimes there aren't enough people who say GET OFF MY LAWN. That said, my housemates do that with some of the local kids and it's so serious.
In conclusion: I really don't know what my point was.