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Q. I recently found a friend of mine from college on Facebook. We have a mutual friend on Facebook and I see him post on our friend’s page a lot. I sent him a friend request but I never heard back from him. Then I sent him another friend request and I still haven’t heard back from him. What’s going on? I’m not sketchy or anything! Should I send him a third request? Should I ask our mutual friend to send him a message to make sure he received my friend request?
A. One of three things could be happening here.
1. Your old friend might not be a big Facebook user. Some people don’t go on Facebook frequently and some people abandon their accounts after setting them up. This doesn’t sound like the case with your friend though, as you mentioned that he posts frequently on your mutual friend’s Facebook page.
2. Perhaps he missed your friend request. People can learn that they received friend requests via email, push notifications on their smartphones and/or an icon on their Facebook page (though the first two methods have to be enabled by the user).
You could cancel your request and send another request to make sure he gets notified again. You could also send him a message on Facebook with a friendly greeting.
3. It could be that your old friend does not want to be Facebook friends with you. When you ask to be someone’s friend on Facebook:
- he can click on Confirm or
- he can click on Not Now or
- he can ignore the request.
If he clicks on Not Now, you will not be notified, but you will be able to send another friend request to him.
If he merely ignores the request and doesn’t click either button, the friendship will be pending. While the friendship is pending, you won’t be able to send another friend request to him (unless you cancel your pending friend request first).
I’m sorry to say this but possibility number three is the most likely for your old friend. The fact that you were able to send another friend request to him means that he must have responded to your friend request by clicking on the Not Now button.
If you want to pursue this friendship, I would suggest sending him a message directly instead of sending another friend request or sending a message through your mutual friend. You don’t want him to block you on Facebook and sending a third request might seem a bit pesky.
Maybe he’s holding a grudge against you for something long forgotten by you? Maybe he’s holding something against you that you don’t even know about, such as you dating a girl he had a crush on in college? Maybe some friendships are better left in the past?
Don’t worry, here is a video from Jimmy Kimmel to cheer you up. He points out why you shouldn’t care how many Facebook friends you have:
Have you ever had issues with someone not accepting your Facebook friend request? Have you ever turned down someone’s Facebook friend request? Let us know in the Comments section below.
* Image by Eustaquio Santimano
** Image by pshab
Also, remember that when you send a friend request, your wall is visible to the potential friend. There may have been something offensive or annoying on your wall when you sent the request. Perhaps you constantly post about your breakfast, or you post political material (guilty of that myself) and he or she is of a different persuasion, so to speak.
I’ve had a couple of friends (from high school) drop me as friends. It does hurt a bit when you realize they’ve done that, and of course I’ve wondered what I did or said to offend them. But they weren’t the kind of people I’d really want to keep up with, so no big deal.
Hi Kathy, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! Excellent point, just because two people were friends in college doesn’t mean they share common interests post-graduation. It’s a shame, though, if someone doesn’t want to be your Facebook friend if you have different political points of view. Sharing differing points of view helps others to understand the opposing side. Everyone could do with a bit more understanding. 🙂
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This is a good post. I don’t always have the time to sort through the stuff on Facebook and decide what is important and what isn’t. My friend took a photo of Windsor castle last week; he’s a royalist and I have just used it for a slightly anti-royalist blog. He may un-friend me later! 🙂
Funny video!!
As I speak, theres prolly 3-4 friend request waiting for me. I see they just randomly added me as a friend. Well, we may have some common interest, or we may be a part of same group, being connected like that on LinkedIn is okay, but not on FB. I don’t want to subject myself to reading whats on someone else’s mind, who I don’t know!
Jimmy said it right, FB is truly ‘cheapening’ the friend term!
Thanks for a great article!
Hi iRewardChart, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! You’re right it does seem some people try to “collect” Facebook friends to get their numbers high. It’s important to share your posts with only the people you want to see them, plus not load up your news feed with information from people you don’t even know.
I respectfully disagree with you about LinkedIn, but that’s the subject of another blog post! 🙂
Just to clarify, I have made great friends online and on Facebook. I am a very bad example for my kids because I have made such good friends online. The friendships have been made through common interests and I have explained to my kids “do as I say, not as I do.” Hmm, maybe a blog post on that topic too…
But I don’t like getting random friend requests on Facebook when there are no mutual friends and not even a message explaining why they are requesting that we be friends.
Hi Carolyn,
I would advice you get in contact with the mutual friend and try to get in touch with that friend through him.But don’t tell the mutual one that you have already send the friend request twice.That way you will surely know the reason behind such a happening.
Hi Shivam, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I think it might depend on how you felt about the mutual friend, but I would want to let the mutual friend know what was going on before I asked for his help. But if you really want to know the reason and your other friend just won’t communicate with you, going through the mutual friend might be your only source to find out what is going on.
Thanks for your visit and your comment!
Ooh!! Great topic, Carolyn! =) Before I started network marketing, I’d only accept friend requests from people I knew. I even had a purge session last year in which I removed people that I barely talked to.
These days, I accept everyone that requests friendship and connect with them further (e.g., through their blog) if it’s our first time meeting.
And to be honest, I’m not really sure if some people haven’t accepted my friend requests. =P
Loved thinking about this, Carolyn! Thank you! =)
Hi Samantha, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! I’m glad you enjoyed this topic. That’s interesting how your view of Facebook has changed based upon your change in business. It’s great that you reach out further by visiting blogs and bringing your warmth and insights to others.
I don’t keep track of my friend requests either. I reach out to people and then generally forget I’ve sent them a friend request by the time I get the notice that they’ve accepted.
Thanks for sharing your insights with us!
Hi Caroly,
I think the most probable situation here is the 3rd one. Unless the friend doesn’t know how to use facebook or how to accept or ignore a friend request. Maybe the best thing to do here is to stop adding the friend who doesn’t want to be added or just send a message to that friend and ask him if he received the request or why he’s not accepting it. 🙂
Hi Calli, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! I agree with you, the third scenario is the one that fits here, as hard as that is for the questioner to hear. I agree, he should send a message to his college buddy to see what the problem might be. It’s better to clear things up than to wonder what the issue is.
Thanks for your visit and your comment!
Hi Carolyn,
I haven’t experienced this, but I have talked to a lot of people about Facebook and friends. Some add everybody as their friends, some I’ve talked to don’t want any friends but their closest friends, and some are mixed. So, it probably all depends on what kind of person you are adding. I add everybody, because I use filters when I publish status updates and when it comes to my newsfeed. Hence, I am still friends with all the really annoying people 🙂
Jens
Hi Jens, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! You’re right, different people have different attitudes towards their Facebook accounts. Adding everyone and filtering your posts is one way of dealing with the friend/unfriend issue. I imagine you need to filter your news feed as well so your page isn’t filled with posts from those annoying people!
Thanks for your visit and your comment!
facebook has indeed one of the most widely used social media of today. I have been using this for some years and now my parents and even my younger siblings have been started creating an account. This is a really good topic and very much interesting as facebook is involved with a lot of different people who wants to connect be friends with each other.
Hello Say, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I am very glad you enjoyed the post. You’re right, plenty of people are using Facebook these days so it’s important to know how it works, especially with reaching out to friends.
Thanks for your visit and your comment.
Hey Carolyn,
Yes, it happened to me to get no feedback to my friendship requests. One of them was approved after more than one year, lol. Another one was not approved, but I have an excellent relationship with that person – she just doesn’t use Facebook that much….
In my case, I only reject invitations from people I don’t know, I don’t like and from work colleagues that are not also friends (because that’s why we have LinkedIn)….
Hi Tomek, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! That’s good that you didn’t take it personally when your friend didn’t accept your Facebook friend request. Some people don’t go on at all or barely ever and then are embarrassed when they see all of the friend requests that they’ve been ignoring.
LinkedIn is the perfect way to connect with work colleagues. I will have to do a blog post about LinkedIn soon!
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment!
For the reader that originally asked this question, I also offer the following three article reads that offer different perspectives on Facebook friending. The concept of a 50 friend maximum circle, I’ve found, is so very true!
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/25/overheard-on-cnn-com-are-we-really-friends/
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-25/tech/path.dave.morin_1_social-network-app-facebook?_s=PM:TECH
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-11-18/tech/facebook.theology.gallaga_1_facebook-theology-past-life?_s=PM%3ATECH
Hi Rachel, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! What an interesting concept, 50 friend circle limit on Facebook. But what if you meet someone new and cool and fun and friendly whom you want to connect with but she would be number 51? Do you kick someone out or
unfriend them to make room for a new friend? Okay, I know you don’t have to be strict about the limit, but you and Jimmy Kimmel agree, no one can really be friends with 1000 people. I can’t really give my opinion on that because I am no where near 1000 friends but it’s certainly difficult to imagine!
Thanks so much for your comment and the helpful links!
The last article titled “The ‘Theology’ of Facebook” is most interesting and is the only perspective that has, for me, accurately summed up Facebook friending. I liken the FB friends list to having a bunch of balloons…it appears the more you have the better (connections wise, if quantity isn’t important, though for some it is); most don’t want to let any of them go for various reasons, but yet holding all the balloons together (one collected from various, random aspects of your life) doesn’t make much collective sense. My favorite quote from the article was:
“It’s that sense of worlds colliding, of unlikely paths crossing; your work life, home life, past life and present all mashing together, commented upon and decorated with photos from here and from there, from then and in the now. To what do we owe our continually growing house of “friends,” the ones we never see, never call, never write to, but who contribute to our digital chatter, our daily chorus. Don’t those connections count for some kind of community? Wouldn’t we miss it if all these non-strangers were lost to us again? If the afterlife exists, and it’s anything like Facebook, does it have an “Unfriend” option? Because as much as I love all the connectedness, eternity sounds like a really long time to spend reading everyone’s status updates…”
Hi Rachel, Wow, thanks so much for a great comment! I love the balloon analogy. Each balloon is special, but how many can you hold?
I have thought about the eternal part of Facebook. I am delighted to have reconnected with some special friends from high school I probably never would have seen again but for Facebook. It’s exciting to discover what people have been doing, though I learned about the deaths of some high school friends as well.
Facebook will only be eternal if it isn’t a passing fad. If people tire of the format, then connections will be lost again, though perhaps to resurface later in another medium.
Thanks so much for your amazing comment!
hi Carolyn, glad to land into your blog. Jimmy is so right to say that facebook has cheapened the meaning of friendship. Very funny video, too! Answering your question, I’d also go for number 3 answer. That’s what I usually do when I don’t want someone to have access to my photos, wall announcements etc. Also, I’d like to recomment everyone no to become facebook friends with collegues or their boss. E-mail is more than enough.
Hi Steven, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I am glad you enjoyed the video. Jimmy is funny but also has a great point. I agree with you, it’s best not to become Facebook friends with work colleagues or your boss. But it’s also awkward if your boss sends you a friend request because you don’t want him or her to feel snubbed.
Thanks so much for your visit!
Great post Carolyn and one that I think everyone comes across from time to time.
I loved Jimmy’s video, how true… But people are on Facebook for different reasons. At one time I was up to my limit but took some time and scaled back big time. There are still plenty of those people who aren’t interested in a relationship with me. I’ll probably scale those back again in time as well.
But I have not accepted some people’s friendships. I had a past friend who asked to be my friend and I declined. People may have different reasons for this so I would just send a personal message and if you don’t hear from them, move on. You certainly don’t want to be friends with people who are interested in you as a person.
Thanks for bringing this subject up. A very good one my friend, very good one indeed.
Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! I agree, there is no use being Facebook friends with someone who, well, doesn’t really want to be your friend. I agree, the person should send a personal message to his college buddy. But if he doesn’t hear back and it really bugs him, perhaps he should check with their mutual friend.
I just found this great article about how people can really only handle 150 friends. Your Brain Can’t Handle Your Facebook Friends. Did you ever imagine having too many friends would be a problem?
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Or another possible reason … perhaps this friend limits his number of Facebook friends! I have a friend who limits his FB account to 100 friends. He found he had too many FB friends to keep up with so he notified us all that “cuts would be made”. He keeps it around 100, sometimes changing up with new friend request!
Hi Carol, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! You have a great point, Facebook limits the number of friends you can have to 5,000 so some celebrities have Facebook pages to make sure everyone can follow them (Facebook pages don’t have a limit). Maybe the college buddy was at his 5,000 friend limit.
If someone didn’t want to be friends with me on Facebook because of their 100 friend limit, I wouldn’t like that very much. The limit would seem artificial to me so the reason would seem like an excuse. But others may disagree and respect the limit.
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HI Carolyn – CarolB stole my thunder, lots of people have reached the FB imposed maximum number of friends, but that doesn’t mean that your friend isn’t being rude not dropping you a message to let you know.
I get dozens of friend requests each week and I am quite stringent in who I accept. I always check out the persons profile to ensure that we have something in common. Much too wary of being hacked I guess, but also too busy to properly connect with people that are simply trying to build friend numbers.
I do however drop them a quick message saying why I have refused their request so they can choose to make the necessary changes if they want to work with me.
As for your specific friend, I ouldn’t lose any sleep over it. You’re probably too nice a person to waste time over someone that doesn’t have basic courtesy 🙂
Regards
Richie
Hi Richie, That’s a great idea, sending a message to someone whose friend request you are denying giving the reasons why you don’t want to be Facebook friends.
The issue wasn’t mine, it was a question from a Wonder of Tech reader. Seriously. I promise! 🙂
Thanks for your visit and your insightful comment!