What do you do if a co-worker sends you a friend request on facebook that you want to reject?
I’ve recently started a new job and today I asked a co-worker of mine if I could send her a friend request (and I made it clear that it would be okay if she said no) but she was cool with it so I sent her a request, which she accepted. However, there’s really no else in the store I want to be fb friends with. I don’t even know if this woman is friends with anyone else in the store and no one saw me ask her, but I’m worried that one of the other co-workers may send me a request. I’d really prefer to be fb friends only with this girl.
This may change in the future, but for right now, I’d like a polite but firm way to tell a co-worker that I don’t want to be fb friends with them. I would just say that I don’t friend co-workers, but since I’ve already friended this girl, that excuse pretty much goes out the window.
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6 Answers
Ignore it and hope it goes away. If they ask… act dumb? Did you? I can’t recall seeing it. I never really use Facebook though.
Or if I really don’t like them. I would just hit .. no thank you and send them on their way.
Haven’t had to do either thank goodness.
Ignore the request and maybe it will go away. If not, you may have some explaining to do, once you go back to work.
If ignoring won’t do, how about “It’s a little too soon for me. I generally like to get to know a person before I start sharing stuff like photos and personal news.”?
@Bellatrix: That will probably have to do.
@john65pennington: Hence the question…
@Jeruba: If they aren’t friends with this girl, then that response will probably be a good option. But if they are friends with her and they see we are friends, I feel like they’ll think I’m BS-ing them.
@KatawaGrey, there’s no inoffensive way to reject someone’s offer of friendship. The truth in this case is not consistent with tact.
The problem (and I think it’s a really big problem, with much larger implications than we fully understand yet) is that “friending” on Facebook isn’t really an offer of friendship at all. But it’s treated as one because our social behaviors and conventions are still lagging way behind what technology makes possible.
If they think you’re BSing them, they’ll be right. That’s what you’re proposing to do. You want to say something other than the truth, which is that you don’t want to be friends on FB. So you’ll have to settle for a tactful fiction, I think, and let them see it for that (giving you credit for tact), as opposed to a tactless fiction or a tactless truth.
I think people should just be honest and direct about this. By now it’s something everyone has been through, on both sides. When you BS about it, they know anyway… so instead of resenting you for not friending them, they resent you doubly for not friending them and being dishonest about it.
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