Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Am I missing something?

Today I got a Facebook friend request from someone... let's call her CB (those are her initials). I didn't recognize the name, but my memory ain't what she used to be, so I clicked over to see if I recognized anything about her: picture, info, whatever. I didn't, but still thinking that my memory could be at fault here (this has happened before and I contacted the person and she explained to me who she was and I realized that she OBVIOUSLY knew me since she knew things about me from middle school, but I still to this day have NO MEMORY WHATSOEVER of her, though I accepted her request anyway because to not do so at that point would have been just mean, plus I lied and replied, "Oh yeah, NOW I remember," to her message, even though I clearly did not, and WHY are those the people who update their statuses CONSTANTLY and post EVERY result of EVERY quiz or game and play EVERY quiz or game?), I decided to send her a message and the following exchange of messages occurred:

Me: Hello. I've received a friend request from you. Can you please tell me how I know you? Thanks.

CB: i just sent out a friend request [**uh, YEAH, hence my question**]

Me: Yes, I know. But who are you? How do I know you?

CB: we have never met


Sooooooooooo....... just what the hell am I missing here? I can't think of a response to this message that doesn't seem just rude, so I probably won't respond at all and will ignore the friend request, but I have to admit to a little curiosity about WHY.

I suggest that Facebook add another request called Random Stranger Request. Then I can send you (well, not YOU, because we obviously KNOW each other) a Random Stranger Request for what purpose I don't know, I can only supply so much of a genius idea, you know. Then if you ignore the Random Stranger Request, that means you are NOT a random stranger, so Facebook would AUTOMATICALLY add us to one another's Friends list. If you were to ACCEPT the Random Stranger Request, however, then anytime you or I tried to access one another's profile, we would get a flashing red warning:

STRANGER DANGER! STRANGER DANGER!

12 comments:

Nowheymama said...

Yeah, that's weird.

Swistle said...

This is so baffling. I HAVE heard about who "collect" Facebook friends---that is, they try to get as many friends as they can, by friending people they don't know. In that context, the conversation makes more sense: You say "How do I know you?," she says "*shrug* [You don't,] I just sent out a friend request [for no real reason other than to add you to my collection of random strangers]," then you say, "But how do I know you?" and she says "[You DON'T, I just sent out the friend request for no reason], we have never met [or anything, I'm just collecting strangers]."

See? Perfect sense. Um.

Shelly said...

Yeah, that's weird. I think Swistle's right. Maybe you went to the same school as this girl, just years and years apart, so that you would never have met her, or maybe she's just picking random people and sending friend requests. I don't know.

Alice said...

i get a LOT of random friend requests. i don't get it.

ooh, OR i'll get a friend request from someone i don't recognize, and it will be all "you have 1 friend in common!" so i'm like "oh! i must know this person then, who's the friend in common?" and it will be, like, someone i met at a wedding 2 years ago and haven't spoken to since, so CLEARLY i do not know any of their friends either. yet this person thinks that just because we have 1 acquaintance in common, WE should be fb friends....? uh, no.

Jess said...

Torsten gets friend requests on a regular basis from women he's never met. I always assume they are looking for random hookups because usually they are barely decent in their photos.

Mary O said...

Yeah, I don't get it either. Like it's a contest to see how many "friends" one can have on their page?

secret agent woman said...

I think it's all aout amassing a bazillion "friends." When I was doing FB, I got soem friend requests of friends of friends. I was baffled.

Captain Dumbass said...

I've had a couple of those now, wth?

Liz in Virginia said...

I find Facebook stalkers a little creepy.

My son says what he does if he doesn't know whether he truly knows someone is -- he accepts their friend request, and then immediately blocks them. They get notified that he accepted them, but they don't get told that he has blocked them. He says this way their feelings aren't hurt, in case he really does know them . . .? I find the whole thing strange!

Liz in Virginia said...

And hey! Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Fantastic Forrest said...

Hilarious post. People are weird (not you) and I am protective of who has access to my FB because I've had similarly bizarre requests.

In some cases, it was from someone who went to my alma mater (only decades later) or someone who was seeking people to play the various apps with, like "Mafia Wars" or something. Others were completely inexplicable, like some French guy in his 30's.

Left of Lost said...

OmG, STRANGER DANGER, indeed! That is just odd.