Avoiding People on Facebook (and other social networking sites)

[Shorty]

We've all been in this situation. Someone adds you on Facebook and you stare at the message for five minutes wondering if you actually want this person involved in your life. (I did this when PG was on his spam brigade >:{.)

My ex-roommate who I cannot stand is constantly texting me, harassing me to add him on Facebook. He sent the request with a message of ":)" and then sent me a text "found you". I'm trying to play the passive I'm-going-to-ignore-you card, but it just keeps getting worse.

At what lengths do you go to in order to avoid co-workers, boyfriend/girlfriend's parents or your 60 year old neighbor on your social networking sites?

[Pheesh]

At the moment I'm only checking facebook for a few minutes at a time to avoid people on chat. So yeah, I can relate.

[demondude]

At the moment I'm only checking facebook for a few minutes at a time to avoid people on chat. So yeah, I can relate.

Why don't you just appear offline?

Edit: Off-topic but lmao a little 10 year old dude I know is playing 'pot wars' on facebook. That's both smurfed up and quite funny. What happened to the age restrictions, though?

[sharkythesharkdogg]

I had the ex-wife friend me about a month ago. I don't hate her, I'm actually completely neutral towards her. The trick is that I want to keep it that way, and interacting with her has shown that she might want to try the "close friends" thing. Ick. I'm great just being an acquaintance.

So I accepted her as a friend, and basically ignore any comments she makes on my posts. I never post anything on her page. Friendly, but removed.

She's only commented twice, and hasn't harassed me otherwise. So far so good. If she starts sending me messages all the time, or otherwise getting weird then bitch gotta go. Easy as that.

[Pheesh]

Eh, it doesn't bother me that much, and luckily they aren't on too frequently.

[Yar]

I get friend requests from random gay men I've never met before. It's... strange. My profile doesn't even list my "Interested In", at least I don't think it does.

My general rule is even if I don't know you, I'll add you, but you have to make some attempt to let me know who you are/why are you bugging me within a few days or I delete you.

[AngelWings8]

I would recommend just "go offline" in the chat so no one can bother you there. I don't like the fb chat function anyway.

If you never see him in person, you could just never friend him (block him if you want to take it that far). Or if you have to friend him, put him in a facebook group that is restricted on seeing most of your posts/photos/information and don't allow them to write on your wall or comment haha.

[Peegee]

I sort of feel bad that Shorty will never add me to fb but I don't intend to ever stop posting insulting things about lazy people. I've stopped like bombing people though but I can't promise that it will never happen again

So tl;dr if you don't want me on fb I'll respect that and stop asking you - until a bit of time has passed and I'm thinking 'hey I don't have shauna or shorty or ...christ what is xandoo's name?' and add you again. Then you can just reject it.

There's this super christian dude at my office who tried to add us to fb. I added hm, but he got fired shortly so I just removed him again. I don't think he noticed. It doesn't matter anyway.

Finally there's a block button.

[Pheesh]

Your tl;dr was longer than the part that you shortened.

[Shorty]

You silly man, you're on my facebook. I'm pretty sure you've been on there for months.

[Pike]

Sometimes I get people who I don't want on my Facebook trying to add me/message me etc. I just ignore them.

Yeah I really have no qualms about doing this. xD

Edit: I also have this paranoia about BEING that person that everyone wants to avoid, so I rarely add people on these things first. I wait for them to add me, or ask if they want to. This is probably why I only have like 70 friends on FB. (Which I'm fine with.)

[Peegee]

You silly man, you're on my facebook. I'm pretty sure you've been on there for months.

Shorty last name removed
Add Friend
Lives in La la land From lol stalkers

[rubah]

Facebook is great because you can just hide their posts and forget they exist. not a big deal.

but even with the other sites, where you would have to remove someone, I'm more ruthless than I used to be. If I don't care about their lives, why would I care about their opinions of me

with g+, I'm a little more liberal about adding people, because they have that built in acquaintances circle, so I just dip anyone I'm undecided on in there.

[The Man]

I solve this problem by barely ever logging into Facebook. I got g+ today but I'm not really sure I care enough to do much with it yet.

[NorthernChaosGod]

I never really have to go through much trouble in ignoring people. If someone adds me that I don't want to be friends with, declined. I've declined a lot of my family. :monster:

[Shorty]

You silly man, you're on my facebook. I'm pretty sure you've been on there for months.

Shorty last name removed
Add Friend
Lives in La la land From lol stalkers

How is that possible! I swear I've seen you in my update feed. And you're poking me all the time!

add me I'm on my phone and can't search for you

[DMKA]

I'm just unabashedly forward about it.

Just about a week or two ago an old aquaintance requested to be my friend of Facebook, so I, without thinking added him.

For those past two weeks every hour on the hour my phone has beeped with a Facebook update by him with some corny JESUS IS AWESOME saying or something letting us know that he found Jesus and now everyone else needs to turn or burn.

I'm happy for the guy and how excited he is over his new found faith, but I just couldn't take it any longer and removed him. I don't feel bad about it.

Not too long ago an ex tried to add me as well. After three request I rejected with a message saying "This profile is for FRIENDS only".

Seriously, it's not hard. I can understand not wanting to hurt people's feelings, but if it's an ex-roommate you can't stand, why do you care?

[Rostum]

I usually just decline people I don't want involved in my life. But if you're that worried you can actually just add them to a group where they recieve no updates from you, can't see your posts, and you can limit information they can see. They'll just think you're not active on Facebook.

[Pike]

And you're poking me all the time!

Oh man, PG, how much time every day do you spend poking people? Good word!

( <3 )

[blackmage_nuke]

My excuse use to be "I only add people in bulk so I have a number of friends equal to a perfect power", and being the nutcase people know me to be, they'll believe me.

Now my excuse is "I dont use facebook anymore, Im on google+" and if they ask me to add them on google+ I put them in the people i secretly hate circle.

[Kalilung]

Someone's already mentioned the groups feature, but it bears repeating. If you go to the area where you edit your friends, you can arrange them into groups and then decide which groups of friends get privileges. Generally I just put the people I hate but don't want to explain to why I hate them (ie, family members) on the pre-made "Limited Profile" group. This has the added benefit of segregating your chat list in such a way that you can chat with people while avoiding others you may not hate, but definitely never want to speak with in real time.

[Shorty]

Seriously, it's not hard. I can understand not wanting to hurt people's feelings, but if it's an ex-roommate you can't stand, why do you care?

Because I'm afraid the repercussions of not adding him will be worse than adding him ;-;

[Peegee]

And you're poking me all the time!

Oh man, PG, how much time every day do you spend poking people? Good word!

( <3 )

I have a plugin for firefox that auto pokes people back. So I just set it and forget it.

[Pike]

And you're poking me all the time!

Oh man, PG, how much time every day do you spend poking people? Good word!

( <3 )

I have a plugin for firefox that auto pokes people back. So I just set it and forget it.

...oh. Well that explains a lot.

[Peegee]

And you're poking me all the time!

Oh man, PG, how much time every day do you spend poking people? Good word!

( <3 )

I have a plugin for firefox that auto pokes people back. So I just set it and forget it.

...oh. Well that explains a lot.

auto like, auto poke back
I don't even need to do anything in fb half the time. now to program a spam script.

[Yar]

Last night my friends dropped from 180 to 179. :(

[Shlup]

I just add everyone, as long as I actually know them, and hide their posts if I don't want to see them. I have about 1/4th of my friends list hidden. And you can always lock certain groups out of things. I have groups for family, friends, kids, old people, and Eyeson.

[Peegee]

and pg.

wait....

:(

[Iceglow]

Situations like this I'm blunt, I'm horribly blunt the person will generally get a text message or a facebook/social networking site message saying something along the lines of go fuck yourself. Like I said horribly blunt, the actual wording of the message is generally speaking something which if I posted, I could be banned for.

[Shattered Dreamer]

I either don't add them, add them then hide them from my news feed, or just flat out ignore them. I can't stand the ones who harass you via FB chat I generally just hit appear offline which is annoying if you're talking to other people at the time!

[Madonna]

Everyone deserves a chance to burn their bridges, so I add people so I can remove them later to let them know they did not meet expectations. Stress goes right out the door when you quit fretting about how much you might hurt the feelings of someone you were going to ignore in the first place.

[CimminyCricket]

I don't really go out of my way to ignore people. If I don't want to talk to them or add them, I don't. I don't have many people I want avoid anyway.

[Rye]

Facebook is great because you can just hide their posts and forget they exist. not a big deal.

but even with the other sites, where you would have to remove someone, I'm more ruthless than I used to be. If I don't care about their lives, why would I care about their opinions of me

with g+, I'm a little more liberal about adding people, because they have that built in acquaintances circle, so I just dip anyone I'm undecided on in there.

Same. I prune FB very consistently!

[Shiny]

I tend to avoid people who I don't know and have never seen or interacted with before in my life. Some how these people find my Facebook even if we don't have any mutual friends. It's not that easy to find me unless you are friends of friends I have. But chyeah, an old man creeper tried to friend me and then some random dude who was like, "I WANNA KNOW YOU." Very creepy. Also lesbians. They do that too. I will add anyone I've actually spoken to recently or at least sends me a message saying where they know me from because I sometimes don't recognize names. If I feel that they're doing it for creepy reasons I will probably deny the request or just leave it pending.

[AngelWings8]

Yeah I've noticed that happens a lot on facebook. I'll accept invites of people I've met at least once (even if I never talk to them again) but I really don't get why there are those who try to add people they've never met either online or offline. I never decline their invites or block them; I just don't "accept" them hahaha. So now I've got a ton of pending invites because I'm 99.9% sure I've never met them in my life (but then there's that slight chance that I met them and forgot because my memory is just that bad...)

[Jessweeee♪]

If it's family I'm not fond of or someone I'm obligated to not offend, I'll add them and click the "hide all posts by x" option. If it's someone I don't want to be in contact with whatsoever I will ignore the request. If someone is being openly bitchy I'll block.

In the special case where I don't want somebody on facebook but they will make trouble if I don't add them, I add them, hide their posts, and change all of my privacy options to "Friends; Except for x." I dont have to see their tit, and they can't bitch about mine.


EDIT:

Not that I ever have to see their tit. Dumb censor. ;_;

[Shiny]

Shortly after posting in this thread someone I vaguely recognized sent me a friend invite. I sent her a message back saying that she looked familiar and if we had met before. We have no mutual friends, but she is in an area I recognize and has one friend I know, so I asked if where we met. She said ask my dad. I called my dad up and was like, "who is this person?" and he said it's my babysitter from when I was like 2-5. WOW. Suddenly old memories coming back.

[AngelWings8]

Ehhh...if I was some kid's babysitter...I don't know if I'd go adding the kid years and years later especially if they didn't remember me.

As for people that I don't want to see all my posts/pictures/etc...I have one specific for family members, and the other default one for "Limited Profile" where I put family friends from back home or whoever else I feel like I may need to censor myself with, etc.

[Clo]

There is just something so satisfying about denying friend requests and blocking people.

[Loony BoB]

Facebook is Facebook. If people get upset over not being listed as a "Friend" on a social networking site, they're taking it all too seriously. Has anyone seen that South Park episode which ripped into Facebook? I loved that quote near the end...

Randy: Hey Stan, my computer says we're not friends anymore.
Stan: My Facebook profile went rogue, Dad. Had to go into the circuitry and do battle with it. I sent all my friends somewhere else.
Randy: Okay. So... we're not friends then?
Stan: Fuck off, Dad.

[Peegee]

Facebook is Facebook. If people get upset over not being listed as a "Friend" on a social networking site, they're taking it all too seriously. Has anyone seen that South Park episode which ripped into Facebook? I loved that quote near the end...

Randy: Hey Stan, my computer says we're not friends anymore.
Stan: My Facebook profile went rogue, Dad. Had to go into the circuitry and do battle with it. I sent all my friends somewhere else.
Randy: Okay. So... we're not friends then?
Stan: smurf off, Dad.

oh god this.

[Citizen Bleys]

Unwanteds is why I have a G+ circle called "Jimmy Hats."

There's no-one in it yet, but there will be.

[Pike]

I haven't even made any new Circles on G+ yet, I'm just using the default ones. And honestly I had no idea you could make groups on Facebook, so I haven't done that over there, either. xD

[Rebellious Eagle]

I just make a list of people who annoy me on fb and chat with me CONSTANTLY and go offline on it for most of the time. But usually there aren't too many people I want to avoid. If someone pisses me off or annoys me I'll let them know. >:3

[AngelWings8]

I love this picture of "21 Google+ Circles You Can Actually Use" lol...258 in the "Dead to me" circle :lol:

21 Google Plus Circles You Can Actually Use | Happy Place (http://www.happyplace.com/8975/21-google-plus-circles-you-can-actually-use)