Sorry, I don't want to be your Facebook Friend!

Without the filter thingy, I would never be able to have my massive Mafia Wars posse.

If they're anything like me, they will notice when someone defriends them.  I always do.   

I notice when someone defriends me too. And you know who you are. 

If they're anything like me, they will notice when someone defriends them.  I always do.   

Umm..me too.

I just go ahead and add people and then hide them from my feed if I don't care to read their posts. I never post anything personal on there anyway, so I don't care if they see my posts.

I ignore a large number of requests, especially the game-related ones. So I pretend some of the friend requests just ended up on the pile.

Sometimes it helps to have a reputation as a bit of a flake.

What I find neat is we've reached an interesting situation in human social interaction whereby we've developed an entirely new set of etiquette guidelines for social networking pages.  If you think on it, it's entirely fascinating! 

When people friend me whom I have no intention of friending, I just let the invite rot.  I don't decline, but I don't accept.  Unfortunately/fortunately, much like the OP, I don't care to be friended by people from high school who wouldnt give me the time of day back then. 

I ignore a large number of requests, especially the game-related ones. So I pretend some of the friend requests just ended up on the pile.

Sometimes it helps to have a reputation as a bit of a flake.

But now we know the truth! 

What I find neat is we've reached an interesting situation in human social interaction whereby we've developed an entirely new set of etiquette guidelines for social networking pages.  If you think on it, it's entirely fascinating!

I'm not sure we've developed, so much as actively developing. It seems like we're rather in flux: cause from what I've seen, people seem to give the same emotional heft to friend requests as they would to actual in-person offers of friendship.

This is based on completely talking out my butt, anecdotal examples, various articles I read about facebook-related angst and my own personal feelings, but it seems like the hurt feelings people experience having their friend request ignored is on par with actually being rejected as honest-injun friends which seems interesting considering it takes way less forethought to click "add friend" and thus should make a person less vulenrable in case of rejection than it does to come up to someone you know and say "Let's be friends!" and have them walk right past without saying a word.

I wonder how this will adjust going forward: will people become more descriminating about sending out FRs or will they stop taking it so personally when they get ignored, rejected, etc?

(Once again, the above is meant entirely as armchair philosophizing on my part and isn't backed up by any research whatsoever. Please don't take offense!)

When people friend me whom I have no intention of friending, I just let the invite rot.  I don't decline, but I don't accept.  Unfortunately/fortunately, much like the OP, I don't care to be friended by people from high school who wouldnt give me the time of day back then. 

Ha! That's another awkwardness! My high school graduating class was rather small, too -- maybe 95 of us -- and I wouldn't mind friending all of them, just out of curiosity what became of them. But I hesitate to initiate some of the invites, on the grounds that I can't remember who couldn't stand me. There were a few 

Very good points Mort.  In my humble opinion, I think the rate at which people get emotionally involved in a friend request accept/decline will taper off and become less over time.  The reason I think this is because online newtorking is so new we are still applying old etiquette to these situations.  Eventually, the conventions we use for in person interaction and social networking interaction will become fully separate.

And I think certain people in certain positions expect to never receive an invite or to be rejected. Managers and bosses as example.  

I just had 2 requests from people both with Turkish sounding names.  I rejected both because I could see no connection whatsoever.  Even if there was a connection through work say, I have no idea who they are and so no desire to "friend" them.

I have gotten a few requests from people I have never heard of (and I don't think they were friends of friends) and I've just ignored them.  I don't know why anyone I never even heard of would think I'd friend them.  Once exception was a young woman who said she saw me on a harp related forum and asked if I'd be her friend because she wanted more harp friends.  I friended her and we've shared a few tips, etc since then.

What I don't understand are the people who request you multiple times.  Ummm....I declined your request the first two times, why would I suddenly accept the third time?  I tend not to ask people to be my FB friend unless I know it's a sure thing.  I would be devastated to think I was annoying someone and they ignored me.

What I don't understand are the people who request you multiple times.  Ummm....I declined your request the first two times, why would I suddenly accept the third time?  I tend not to ask people to be my FB friend unless I know it's a sure thing.  I would be devastated to think I was annoying someone and they ignored me.

Maybe they forgot that they already requestd you? It's possible for people who send out a gazillion requests every day.

I've actually missed friend requests in the past - not declined them, but just not noticed them at all. So the person requested again, and I'm glad they did!

Maybe they forgot that they already requestd you? It's possible for people who send out a gazillion requests every day.

I've actually missed friend requests in the past - not declined them, but just not noticed them at all. So the person requested again, and I'm glad they did!

If the person you send the request to does nothing, it eventually falls off, so it's also possible the person did it again thinking you hadn't replied to it at all, since people don't get rejection notices. I know I've sent the same request to one of my friends from HS three times in a row before she finally responded to it because she kept losing the request.