Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Quantity Is Better Than Quality

So I opened my email today and had a new friend request on Facebook. It was from someone I knew in high school but was never really friends with. In fact, I probably only ever spoke to her twice. Now she sends me a friend request. Do I accept? She was an aquaintence at best, never a friend. It's not like we were mortal enemies or anything, we just weren't friends.

What does a friend request even mean? If I have 100 friends in my friends list, is that better than having 50? What if I have 20 people, but they're all my good friends who I spend time with and care about? Is that better?

I just don't like the "I'm going to friend request everyone I've ever know" policy for most people on MySpace/Facebook/LinkedIn/whatever. I used to deny those people, but then they'd just request again. So I'd ignore them, but then they'd message me. I decided it wasn't worth offending people because I didn't consider them a friend, so I just started accepting the requests.

But seriously people. If I haven't spoken with you in 10 years and you send me a friend request (and nothing more*), what are you trying to do: increment your friend count or actually catch up?

*I've had a few people send friend requests then send lengthy emails of the catching-up type. I'm down with that.

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