Monday, March 31, 2008

What Emily Post Didn't Anticipate

I had planned to just keep my typing fingers still until the end of April (at which point the powers of academia will either fail me or pass me on to the next set of flaming hoops), but I am faced with an ethical dilemma to which I have no answer.

What do you do when you get a friend request from someone you don't know? Or worse yet, someone you know and just don't like all that much?

If I were a member of the 19th century landed gentry, I could invite the caller into my sitting room for cigars, and allow him no further and offer him sub-par sherry. That would have certainly driven home the message and no one would lose face or social grace.

Thoughts from the public are welcome.

3 comments:

Andy said...

Sounds like you're contemplating faceslamming someone. It's a rough business, but it must be done.

If I have no idea who they are, I give myself a day or two to recall. If nothing comes to me, it's to the dustbin with their request.

I may be a cold-hearted snake, but as far as dealing with the friend request of someone you don't like, I'd 86 it without a second thought. Odds are, they'll soon forget that they ever invited you.

...Or maybe they'll develop a seething rage that will eventually consume you both. One can never know.

Hoff said...

ya. if i don't know them, i just ignore the request.
if i actively don't like them... i'm just glad i haven't run into that one yet.

BuffyICS said...

I'm with Andy--they'll probably forget they invited you after a while. Otherwise they might re-invite you if they're really that gung-ho about being your Facebook friend. In which case, if you do cave in and accept the request, you can always set your privacy settings so that they can't see as much of your profile (assuming that's your concern in adding them).

I would say that since most people only actively communicate with maybe 20% of their friends on Facebook, even if you do add them it will just be another person on your friend list. So you'll never have to actually talk to them.