Can we talk about the high school classmate Facebook friend request?

[firsttimemama]

So.. occasionally someone from HS will request to add me on Facebook. I usually accept (99% of the time) even though I am in touch with *1* person from high school (in the true friendship sense)

I understand the urge.. I've scrolled through and looked at peoples pictures, but have stopped short of requesting friends.

I sometimes think FB needs some kind of option where you can grant people access to your pictures for a day, and then it disappears. That's all anyone wants to see right?

Sometimes a while after adding these people, all the sudden it starts to bug me that they're seeing all these contents of my life .. when.. we're not really friends. I've actually unfriended HS classmates months after the initial add, figuring they're not gonna notice.

Now I find myself in this position again, just wondering what to do - maybe I should not be accepting people in the first place? Lock down my profile more? I hate the maintenance of all the different lists of who can see what etc.

What do you guys do? Are you all "open books" so you don't care?

[hellokitty]

I use a nickname that only my college friends and onward know of on my FB. So, I don't get requests from high school ppl (thank goodness, b/c I'd ignore all of them). If I were you, I'd just ignore their request and not feel bad about it. They can always send you a private message if they want to, "tell" you something, like they want to get together or something. However, I think you are right. Most high school ppl only want to see pics, and don't really have any desire to rekindle friendships.

[lizzywednesday]

I don't accept friend requests from people I would rather have lost touch with, like ex-boyfriends and clinically psychotic former besties and do discriminate between people I only casually knew (like friends of friends) or people with whom I lost touch because I was almost never in town during college but consider to be true friends.

Last year, I caught up with a lot of people from my high school choruses because we lost our Director quite suddenly (heart attack) and we were all at loose ends trying to grieve. We ended up using that energy to create an alumni association and will continue to gather as a choir for some events - including an upcoming performance at Carnegie Hall in April!

I definitely do not friend everybody I've ever known and also have my privacy settings locked down pretty tightly ... but that's mostly because I was stalked by my h.s. ex (who is currently having marital problems) and have a few other people who just bring bad karma with them everywhere they go, so associating with them is more trouble than it's worth.

[MoJo]

I accept if we were friends back then. (And I wouldn't say I'm in touch in the true friendship sense with any of my HS friends.)

I'm pretty careful about what I post on FB since my mom, sister, FIL, SIL, & a couple of co-workers are all friends.

For me, it's kind of eye-opening to see the difference between the things my HS friends post and the things that my college friends do.

I've moved away, so I never actually see most of my FB friends. . . and that's why I really like FB.

And now, I'm back in touch with a nice network of people, which may serve me well since we don't plan to stay here forever.

[citymama]

I'm dealing with this too. The problem is that I have a few good HS friends and a close cousin who went to the same HS as me who are far less discriminating on FB - they pretty much seem to accept FB friend requests from anyone. So many times these unwanted people will friend me, but have like 5 friends in common with me and can see my comments etc on the common friends posts, which is kind of rude after I've ignored a friend request from them. I guess I could set up a HS category and then just shut them out from most of my FB, but I wish I didn't have to accept their requests at all!

[TwinFoxes]

If you can't bring yourself to ignore them in the first place, you can just make a HS group, and change your privacy settings so that group can't see anything. Easy peasy.

[BabyMine]

I am extremely picky on who I accept. There is only 1 person I accepted that was questionable. I only allowed him 1 day of photo access. I excluded his name from all my pictures and albums.

[PearlsMom]

If we were actually friends and just lost touch, I'll accept. If I wouldn't have hung out with them in HS, it's unlikely I want them contacting me via FB.

But I think it can be useful to have some less-close pals on FB...it reminds me that anything I put on the internet can get out to a wide audience, so I should be careful about the image and info I share. Works for me.

[katydid1971]

I accept if we were friends back then. (And I wouldn't say I'm in touch in the true friendship sense with any of my HS friends.)

I'm pretty careful about what I post on FB since my mom, sister, FIL, SIL, & a couple of co-workers are all friends.

:yeahthat:

[randomkid]

Depends on the person. I have accepted friend requests from people I knew in HS, but I was also friends with them in jr high and some even as far back as elementary school. Those few I have accepted and actually messaged back and forth a few times. I just ignore the others.

What bugs me is people that request you to be a friend, then never send you a message. This seems to happen mostly with people I knew in college. I don't have pictures on FB other than my profile pic, so if that's what they want to see, then they will be disappointed. I also do not have any personal info listed such as where I work, etc. I'm rarely on FB, so I really limit my info in the first place.

If I were you, I'd just ignore the requests from people you might unfriend later on. Do you really care if they get annoyed? Not likely, so do what makes you the most comfortable.

[writermama]

For acquaintances I don't want to ignore, but just don't want to share everything, I use the "lists" of friends. For example, I have a list of "close friends" who I allow to see anything I post, a list of High School Friends, a list of local friends ... and so on.

If I want to share something with the HS friends, plans for an upcoming reunion, for example, when I post the information, I click the padlock next to the post and select the High School Friends list.

Same if I want to ask if any of my local friends wants to go to lunch and so on.

[Penny's Pappa]

I'm more of an open book so I don't really care. If I know the person, I'll generally accept them.

Your privacy settings actually let you block individual people as well as whole groups. You could keep them as friends but restrict what they see on your site while still allowing the majority of your other friends to see whatever you want them to see.

Go to Account->Privacy Settings

In the drop down boxes should be an option to "Customize." Click that and a box should pop up that should allow you to block individuals.

[creativelightbulb]

HS "friends" get one week...two weeks TOPS access then they are erased...seems fair to me

[SnuggleBuggles]

I accept them but I block them by putting them on a list that limits their access to things.

Beth

[ohiomom1121]

HS "friends" get one week...two weeks TOPS access then they are erased...seems fair to me
I would rather someone just ignore my friend request than unfriend me a few weeks later...seems a little rude to me.
I do use my lists and people I'm not close with see no pictures or a lot of my personal info.

[michellerw]

I accept them, but I went to a super tiny school from 6th grade on and we all grew up together. For the most part, I think it's lovely to know who they are and what they're doing now. I love looking at photos of their families too. I think I'm FB friends with something like 32 of the 52 of the women who were in my graduating class. I openly recognize my situation is weird.

My best friend from college recently got a FB friend request from a guy he went to high school with (but doesn't remember) who was, in his FB profile, accepting an adult film award. How (not) awesome and kind of creepy is that?

[catsnkid]

So far I only defriended one person. It was someone I sorta knew, but not well, and then she never posted any status updates or anything. I pretty much don't friend anyone I don't know. I have gotten requests from people that I went to school with but don't know and one guy who was someone a co-worker knew.. Those were denied. One girl and I talk a lot on FB.