This week’s etiquette dilemma: “It has been several months since I have made a friend request or two on Facebook that have yet to be answered,” writes a reader named JenniferBeck.
“I know them on a very casual acquaintance level, but don’t believe that either of them would be highly restricting their friend requests,” she writes. “I can see their status updates, but am not able to reply as I am not a ‘friend.’ How can I kindly request that they either approve or deny me without seeming pushy?”
Sometimes it feels as if Facebook has catapulted us all back into the icky, uncertain social world of junior high school: Does she like me? Is she ignoring me on purpose? Should I ask?
This is a tricky situation, JenniferBeck. It’s possible that these “very casual acquaintances” have deliberately not responded to your friend requests because they don’t want to elevate the relationship to a more intimate level. On Facebook, people ignore friend requests all the time for this reason. In the real world, ducking someone instead of responding would be considered a classic example of passive-aggressive behavior. But on Facebook, many users consider it a gentle way to brush off unwanted contact.
In this case, however, you aren’t getting a brush-off vibe (you “don’t believe that either of them would be highly restricting their friend requests”). So you’re right to give these Facebook users the benefit of the doubt and assume there’s an innocent explanation. Many users are still getting the hang of how things work on the site. It’s possible, for instance, that the users never received your friend requests. If you send a request via the site’s Friend Finder, it could go to an email address that is not listed on a user’s Facebook account.
Another possibility: A request can arrive at an inopportune moment. If the users saw the friend requests but didn’t have time to respond and instead clicked “Not Now,” the requests got hidden. They no longer appear on the users’ home page — and may be long forgotten.
If you believe the requests were innocently overlooked, it’s OK to follow up by sending users personal messages: “Hope all is well with you. I’m not sure if my friend request got through (so many glitches on Facebook!), but I’d love to connect.”
If you still get no response (even though you can see from the users’ status updates that they are active on the site), assume that your pending friend requests are not going to accepted. In that case, you can remove them by viewing a user’s Profile and clicking “Cancel Friend Request” below the profile photo.
Have you ever ignored a friend request? If so, why? And if you sent one that got no response, what would you do?
(image via Realsimple.com)
My husband and I have a joint account and we have denied many a friend request. Usually it is from women who like attention and want to have over 700 fb friends. Other times, believe it or not, it has been an ex! Of course neither of us know these people well anymore and assume they are adding us out of sheer nosiness. If someone ignored a request from us I’d get over it and quick! No reason to add an acquaintance anyways. In fact I hate it when mere acquaintances add us. I know it sounds harsh but just because you have seen each other doesn’t mean you need to be friends on Facebook unless a deeper relationship forms outside of it first
This is so arrogant! I have people who I have denied friend requests for a myriad of reasons: we are casual acquaintances, I know enough of them to know they would not like my comments and links, or I have no desire to share the things with them that I share with my Facebook friends. (I am selective. My rule of thumb is “Do I want this person to see pictures of my children.)
But, one person, the child of one of my mom’s frienemies, requested two more times after I denied her. The fourth request is sitting in my inbox so she can’t request again.
Get the message. If they want to friend you, they will accept now or find you when you are ready. Otherwise, quit thinking your friendship is so great, that the only way they would not add you is because they didn’t see you. Trust me…you aren’t and they didn’t.
I’ve ignored requests mostly bc I didn’t know the person. There’ve been a few who I’ve messaged back asking how they knew me (usually a relative I didn’t know). In those cases, I accept the request.
If I send a request and it’s ignored, I just assume they didn’t want to and move on. The only time it’s upset me was when it was someone I was close to in high school. I still give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she had her reasons, no hard feelings.
I worked in an elementary school as a principal so I did not accept friend requests from the parents of my students or from staff I supervised. I use Facebook to communicate with my children or with out- of -town friends and family. We have re-connected with many high school and college friends. I want to keep my “work life” separate from my friend and family correspondence.
I has this issue with a woman who had briefly dated my brother and then married a good friend of ours (whirlwind). U accepted her as a fb friend once then age deleted me and said she had to rebuild her account after getting “hacked”. I decided it was awkward as she was obviously viewing my brothers and his kids fb comments since they were friends of mine and she continues to publically bad mouth my brother and his kids. I tried telling her that I just had my game app friends on there but she kept emailing me in all caps WHY WON’T YOU ACCEPT ME? I have now totally blocked her as to as much as I can the whole thing is really awkward and she seems to live for fb and drama. Needless to say I am so thankful her and my brother are no longer an item! Sigh….
Sorry for above typos.
Trying to squeeze my words in on my smart phone while riding on the subway!