What reasons have you had for neither accepting nor declining a facebook friend request?
A few weeks ago, I friended a guy I’ve been seeing. He did not accept my request, but he did not decline it—it’s been pending for weeks. Tonight, my facebook feed told me he became friends with several other people.
Up until that, I figured he just hadn’t logged in lately or hadn’t paid attention to his friend requests. We spend time together regularly and don’t have any weirdness between us that I can think of.
Naturally I guess I will have to ask him about it at some point, but in the meantime, would anyone care to speculate or provide some perspective? What reasons have you had for keeping someone in this holding pattern?
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My reason: I don’t have a Facebook account, and therefore, no friend requests.
The only reason I do that is when I’m not sure if I’ve met the person or not. I had one of my cousin’s friends he hadn’t seen for over ten years add me, and I didn’t accept or decline for weeks while I waited to ask my cousin if I’d ever met him.
Does he know its your facebook? Some people I know won’t accept or deny them if they don’t recognize the person.
@Mom2BDec2010: It has my full name (which he definitely knows) and a clearly visible picture of my face. If he couldn’t figure out that’s me…. well, then maybe we shouldn’t be dating.
Maybe he’s hiding something on his page if its private. I would confront him about it.
Maybe he only friends people he is very close to.
@chocolatechip There dating though. If you read her response to my first answer.
I declined one girl because she was so mean to me when I first started at the school, she told everyone that I couldn’t talk and didn’t understand Icelandic because I was foreign, she’s foreign too. I am much better than her in Icelandic.
Well she just gets on my nerves.
Yeah, that’s strange. My guess is he’s hiding something. I’d definitely ask him about it, maybe in a casual, semi-joking kind of way.
I do this when I don’t like the person, or I don’t want them seeing whats going on with my profile.
If this is a guy that you’ve been dating, who declined your request – he probably is hiding someone… hem hem, sorry. Something.*
As a general answer to the question, not to your specific situation:
I prefer to keep my Facebook friend list short. To people I know well, and am interested in hearing about. I do have personal information there (Not a whole lot, but enough), I don’t really want everybody to see it.
There are a few Jellies who I have friended on Facebook, because I’ve gotten close to them. But there are some other Jellies to whom I’ve barely ever spoken (and have never even said my real name to) who’ve tried to add me as a friend.
I’ve had a few friends-of-friends in real life request friendship too, people that I’ve met once or twice. I put them in friendship request limbo too.
Why put them in limbo? In the off chance that we do actually talk and I feel I’ve gotten close to them.
To your specific situation:
Well, like most people say, that sounds like he’s hiding something. But maybe he’s not trying to hide something from you. But rather, trying to hide you from someone.
Doesn’t want psycho ex-girlfriend to know about the new fling? (don’t ask me why he’d be friends with her. I don’t understand people, but I know a few people who are still friends with crazy exes.)
Doesn’t want his mom to ask when he’ll start giving her grandkids?
Doesn’t want his fratbros to pester you?
Or maybe he thinks there may be pressure, if he friends you, to set his status to “in a relationship” which may be a step ahead of where he wants to be?
@Sarcasm But which one of those do you think is more likely?
He is either hit “hide” or “ignore”
He may only add people he’s friends with and not people he dates.
Makes sense to me. People you date aren’t necessarily your friends, just like family members aren’t necessarily friends (although you may love them very much).
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Not necessarily.
Maybe he is hiding something, though it’s not necessarily something bad. Maybe he just has an embarrassing picture he doesn’t want you to see.
@chocolatechip Why would you put an embarrassing photo on there if you’d be embarrassed by it?
@Mom2BDec2010
Might be embarrassing depending on who it is…I don’t know. Whatever. Unfollow.
I have never done this but my guess is he doesn’t want to decline you but he either (a) doesn’t want you to see something that’s on his profile or (b) he doesn’t want some of his other friends to know that he has you friended.
I find it odd too that your partner wouldn’t add you. Anyway, the only time i’ve not declined but just ignored one is because i don’t know the person, or i know them from a social website but i don’t care to go so far as to add them as a friend on FB.
I have kept someone in limbo before in the hope that they would forget to check… If I declined it straight away the chances are they would be still thinking about it and likely to check to see if I’d actively declined them. I left it for about a month and then removed it. It was an old school aquaintence who I had no desire to share my current life with. Sorry not a more positive reason for you!
I tried Facebook for a year and then closed my account. With due respect to those who use and love it, I realized how little interest I have in what new brand of toothpaste a “friend” just discovered or how hard his day at work was. ;-)
I think @Sarcasm has the best answer, or actually answers. There is no way for us to know for sure why he didn’t friend you, so you need to just ask him. Be casual about it, not confrontational.
If I don’t know you in real life and you request me, I won’t friend you until I speak to our mutual friend. That is the only way a friend request comes to me, as my profile is on lockdown. Otherwise, I click “ignore” and that’s that.
@augustlan: Any suggestions on how to bring it up?
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