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Have you ever received friend requests from people you’ve maybe met once but didn’t even introduce yourselves to each other during that time? Does that justify a friend request?

Getting awkward requests from people I’ve exchanged 0-5 words with is simply… strange. Usually the friend request will have an attached message like:

Stranger: “Hey… I think I met you before through ______…”
My response: “…And…?”

Seriously though, should my response be: “Oh! Right! Therefore we are friends! Let me add you to my cache of facebook friends!” I can’t help but feel: 1. maybe this person simply wants to increase his army of friends on facebook and boost his popularity, and/or 2. less respect for that person.

I think this is worth thinking about, because when a friend request is not completely merited, it could put a potentially good friendship or relationship into jeopardy (suppose the receiver rejects the friend request). It’s like asking a favor of someone you don’t even know that well (but not as severe obviously).

So let’s think about this. What really merits a facebook friend request? Besides the obvious reasons (e.g. your social group of friends), here’s a small list of my justifications:

1. We’ve introduced ourselves to each other and conversed on a topic we can both relate on for at least a few minutes.
2. We’ve messaged each other back and forth and are pretty familiar with each other (even though we’ve never physically met).
3. Long-time close friend and we haven’t spoken in forever!
4. Any relative.

Can you think of any others? I recently met a friend or two at a social outing, and by ‘met’, I mean simply introducing our names to each other. That’s it. This led to facebook friend requests.

Am I wrong to feel this is a bit strange?

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE making new friends. It’s one of the greatest feelings in the world really. But I learned through the years that the only friendships that matter in the long run are those with meaningful connections. Long-time friends. Not hey-I-know-you-and-you-know-me friends. Quite frankly, I’m not lacking in those types of friends and simply am not interested in meaningless friendships.

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