A rude facebook question

[Remudamom]

I have some people from high school that want to friend me. I don't want to, but one of them is related to my best high school friend, and I'd hate to hurt her feelings.

 

If I say I don't know him, what will he see on his fb? Does it actually say "Remudamom does not know you?" or does it just not allow him to send anymore friend requests?

 

I barely post anymore because everytime I do some idiot from my past finds me!

 

Is there a virtual shotgun application on fb?

 

ETA- on the "send you a friend request" setting there are only two choices. Everyone and Friends of friends. Does anyone know how to get around this?

Edited December 16, 2010 by Remudamom

[Vanna]

This is one of the reasons I am not on fb. ;)

 

Hope someone can give you a solution. If not, then maybe you want to consider deleting your account. :leaving:

[texasmama]

It won't send any information to the person you dont' want to friend. If they look at your page, instead of "friend request pending", it will say "add as a friend" so the person will know that you declined their request. There is a way to become unsearchable on FB, but I don't know how to do it. It sounds like that might be a good option for you.

[stormy weather]

I just click not now or ignore or something.

I had one of those lately with a girl I went to school with who always made/makes me uncomfortable IRL and I went back and forth, feeling guilty about being "mean" to her. I decided I would just be nice to her when I see her around town and move along. I am not obligated to fb friend her. Putting up with her grabbing me and hugging me without asking is plenty enough.:D

Maybe it should be a virtual bad breath app:ack2:

[Unicorn.]

I think you can hide the requests now. That way they still see "request pending", but you don't see the request, and they won't know you didn't want to friend him. At least for a while. :D

[LisaKinVA]

I don't know anyway to really change the FR request settings, but you can determine which friends see what/can do what. I have some "friends" that can't see photos I upload, read notes, etc. I also have a tendancy to "hide" people that are relatives, but have no interest in reading what they are doing...following them, etc.

[Margo out of lurking]

I think you can hide the requests now. That way they still see "request pending", but you don't see the request, and they won't know you didn't want to friend him. At least for a while. :D

 

I had hidden friend requests that I did not want to accept, but it was pointed out to me that these people can actually SEE my posts. I am not sure how true that is, but I realized that I had "friended" a local business who had not accepted my request (just let it pend), and I could see every update it posted.

 

So I went back in and deleted all of my pending friend requests just to be sure.

 

You might consider just blocking yourself from searches on FB. Click on Account; Privacy Settings. Under "Connecting on FB," choose "View Settings." From there, you can choose exactly who does (or does not) see you.

 

You'll also want to confirm that your posts are seen only by Friends, not Friends of Friends. This would explain why you post and someone comes up out of the blue, if they are seeing your post on their own wall.

[teamturner]

I have a list of high school people that sent me a friend request because I am friends with some HS people. If I don't remember them, then I ignore the request. I guess I'm hoping I'll eventually remember who they are or drag down my yearbook and figure it out. :tongue_smilie:

[DarcyB]

Kristine -

 

That was a business, and it may have been set up differently. If you ignore or deny, a person cannot see your status unless you have it set to public.

 

No one is told of any friend changes you make to your account, either. They don't receive a denial, they don't receive notification if you remove them as a friend later, or just hide them. That's one thing FB has in it's favor.

[Farrar]

Yeah - two options - friend them then quietly drop them a week later. People are told if you deny their request, but not if you defriend them.

 

Or - just don't do anything. Eventually the request expires and they don't get any notice about it. If they're paying attention, they will most likely think you're not much of a Facebooker or that you're just absent minded and don't notice all your requests.

[Hannah C.]

As far as I know, people are *not* told if you deny their friend request. If they search for you again and you clicked "ignore" they will see "friend request pending" for a very long time. If you deleted the friend request, they will see "add as friend." I believe that if you say "I don't know this person" that they will not be able to add you at all, but they may still be able to find your search listing (which shows profile picture and name).

 

I don't feel obligated to add anyone on FB..especially if I wouldn't say hi to them in a grocery store. And I also have customized privacy settings so that, for example, only good friends of mine can see most of my pictures. There's no need to add someone "just to be polite," for the most part, especially if they are people you no longer speak to IRL.

[WarriorMama]

I decline people from high school willy nilly. :tongue_smilie: I don't care of they know or if they think it's rude. If I didn't talk to you or like you THEN, why on earth would I want to reconnect? ;)

[Forget-Me-Not]

1. People are not notified if you deny their friend request.

 

2. People are not notified if you un-friend them.

 

3. People cannot see more of your profile if they have a friendship request pending with you. (HOWEVER if you send them a private message without friending them, they are able to see more of your profile.)

 

4. While people are not officially notified if they are declined/unfriended,they can still see any activity of yours that is visible on the profiles of any mutual friends you have (commenting on their wall, or 'liking' a photo in their photo album for example), and may deduce that you've denied/un-friended them.

 

5. The block feature can be useful, because it makes you completely invisible/unfindable to anyone you have on your block list. They won't be able to find you in the directory, won't see you on mutual friend's friend lists, won't see your postings etc on mutual friend pages. If you deny/un-friend someone, you may want to consider adding them to your blocked list for the reasons I mentioned in #4. I've had people send me multiple friend requests. Whether this is because they forgot they already asked me, or figured persistence would work in their favor, I don't know. But they are now on my blocked list so they can't find me, let alone request me anymore.

 

6. You can change your friend request settings so that only friends of friends can request to be your friend (clear as mud?)

 

7. You can change your directory settings so that only friends or friends of friends can find you in the directory.

 

8. You can actually do quite a bit of customizing to your security settings. Look for the 'Account' menu on the top right hand of your screen, then go to 'Privacy settings'. You'll see a checklist there for what Facebook 'recommends' for you, but you can click on 'view settings' just above it and 'customize settings' just below it and change quite a few things. I use these settings liberally. I have certain people on my friend's list who aren't allowed to see my photo albums or to read/comment on my wall, for example.

 

9. You can also do a one-time block on anything you post on your wall. Going to be posting a left-leaning political rant and don't want to offend your Republican grandmother? Click on the padlock icon next to the 'Share' button and see a drop-down menu that allows you to determine who can see JUST that status.

Edited December 16, 2010 by LemonPie