I’m really weird about Facebook. I like keeping my list of Facebook friends to only people I know in person. That means family and real life friends.
I ignore all friend requests from online friends and clients/customers. It’s not personal. I’m just weird about Facebook.
Facebook is kind of my personal space
I hop onto Facebook when I want to catch up on my family/friends’ lives. I don’t like having my feed filled up with updates from people I don’t actually know. It makes me feel like I don’t even know my own feed.
Friends are for “real life” friends; groups are for online relationships
I may not want to add you as my friend, but I’m happy to be in a group with you!
I wander into Facebook groups when I’m in the mood to help people or chat with people I don’t necessarily know in person. I’m in Facebook groups for:
- Book bloggers
- Freelancers
- Designers
- WordPress
- Web developers
I love being in groups—they’re actually the only reason I log into Facebook every day. But they’re actually where I run into this friend problem the most.
Typically I start chatting with someone in a Facebook group, we get along well, they answer my questions or I answer theirs, then they request to be my Facebook friend. Aaaaawkward.
I feel really bad when I ignore those kinds of requests because I’m so afraid that they’ll take it personally and it’s not personal. It’s not that I don’t like you, it’s not that I don’t want to be your friend overall—it’s just that I’m weird about Facebook.
I’m picky, but I have a process lol. “bookish friends” go into a separate friends list where I have stricter privacy set up for them. However, I end up removing a lot of them from the list because I truly feel like they’re as much of a friend as someone I know in real life. And I do end up meeting a lot of them! I’m on a business trip right now and almost every day I’ve met up with someone I know from Facebook, Twitter, Slack, etc. I’m starting to notice that I’m becoming even closer with these friends than those I know from school and stuff because we have more in common to talk about nowadays.
I barely even use Facebook, other than the messenger because I don’t have texting. But I totally understand wanting to keep it separate from online based friendships. I have added other bloggers and a couple of authors, but only those that I’ve chatted with regularly. I never post anything to my wall, and I don’t look at the update feed AT ALL. Like…never…in years! So I don’t need that real life/online life distinction, since I don’t see anything anway. But I think if I did actually use Facebook as it’s meant to, I probably would.
This is the exact reason I have two separate Facebook accounts. One is for me, with my real name, with friends and family, and some friends I have met online and talked with many, many times and they because actual friends. There are a few acquaintances, but mostly those are high school friends where we occasionally touch base.
Then there’s my “all business” Amelyn Randall stuff. That’s my pen name, and I’ll be friends with just about anyone who doesn’t proposition me or start adding me to groups I want nothing to do with. I’m pretty careful, though, about making certain we have friends in common first. The friend list there is mostly made up of book readers, fellow bloggers, authors, models, publishers, promoters, anything “books.” 🙂 If they’re not somehow in the biz, I ignore the request.
Sorry if I sent you one. 😉 I honestly don’t remember who I’ve sent Friend Requests to about 30 second after I’ve done it. Except for Kristen Ashley. I’m still trying to sneak in there, but she’s at the 5,000 Friends limit. Sigh.
Just now realized there is no edit button for comments. Please forgive the mistakes. LOL!
I don’t accept invitation from people I don’t know! However, I do befriend some people I’ve never met IRL but whom I’m interested to get to know more (often book-related acquaintance actually!).
I created a list for my close friends and relative and only post personal updates to this list. “Regular” FB “friends” can’t see those.
I don’t accept FB requests from random people, but there are a few bloggers that I interact with a lot that I’ve accepted as FB friends – only if I feel like I “know” them. And my editing clients are friends with me, but I don’t have a ton of clients like you do. In general, though, my stance is the same as yours – FB isn’t where I do blogging networking.
I’m the same way – I typically keep my Facebook to people I’ve met in real life, or at least have communicated with a lot online and feel comfortable with them. I am picky about who I friend from blogging stuff, and it annoys me when people from blogging groups expect my personal page to be public and have all my blog stuff shared to it.
I’m definitely the same! I don’t accept friend requests on facebook of people unless I know them in person, and of course if I like them. I don;t really want people I’ve never met being privy to my life on facebook.
For me, I accept invitation from people I’ve communicated with online (mainly from work). My Facebook profile is really lacking, so I don’t have any issue with it. My last photo dates back to 2012, haha!
I’m exactly the same! I can even get picky about the people I don’t know really well in real life. Adding people who are basically strangers doesn’t make sense to me because I don’t need to know what’s going on in their life all the time. The only online people I’ve added on facebook that I don’t know in real life are people I’ve been talking to online for years and formed really good friendships with (eg Alise, my coblogger), but even then we rarely interact on facebook.
I haven’t really accepted many requests for friends outside of my real life friends. I have my PAGE for people to follow and talk with me there. 😉
I believe in keeping some things separate.
I’m kind of weird about who I add on my personal Facebook. I mostly stick to people I know, but I have added some of my blogging friends that I’ve talked to constantly since I’ve “met” them. However, I do deny a lot of requests that I get, even if I recognize the face from Twitter or the Blogosphere. My opinion is that I’ll add the people I want to be friends with, not the other way around.
But I have a page set up for my blog for people to like. I feel like that’s a nice medium.
I don’t have any bloggy friends on FB either. I don’t have a link to my page on my blog, but I guess people could find me if they wanted to, since my last name is part of my email. Gotta change that!) I would ignore them. My FB friends are family, friends from the past. A lot of my IRL friends don’t even have FB pages! I’m kind of mean about who I’m friends with on FB to the point where I’ve unfriended annoying people.
I have considered setting up a separate FB just for my online world, but then it would be one more thing to keep up with. I’m not trying to grow a business, and I’m happy with what I’ve got going as far as followers on social media and visits to my blog, so why bother?
I think it makes sense to carve out at least one social media platform for people you truly care about. Kudos to you for taking a stand on Facebook for it! I’m even stricter than simply not accepting random friend requests of people I’ve never met in person. I deleted my old Facebook account two years ago and started a new one, only accepting friends I still interacted with regularly. I was tired of keeping up with people I hadn’t even talked to in years. But I also didn’t wanna make it seem personal by unfriending all of them.
Nope, I am the opposite. I often don’t accept requests from people I know personally (just some friends and family) because I usually don’t like them, lol. Like my dad’s side of the family. I like being friends with people online who I have known for some time. They are the ones I communicate with more often anyways. Though I don’t get it when people I don’t know try to add me. I also don’t feel bad ignoring people’s friend requests or my requests being ignored because everyone has the right to friend who they want to. I still keep my friends small though. I think I have about 60 facebook friends.
I got tired of situation like this so I deleted my Facebook account. Maybe it’s too radical as a solution, but I don’t feel awkward anymore. 😀
That’s not weird at all, I do the same thing. I met a few colleagues for the first time a while back, then joined FB groups they were part in, and suddenly I get friend requests from other people in the group who I’ve never even heard of before. So, I will not add you as a friend if I don’t know, even if networking is damn important.
The same goes for Xing. I don’t just add people to my contacts because we’re in the same line of work. It’s like recommending a brand you’ve never ever tried yourself — wtf? I only recommend things I know are good, because one way or the other, my rec will find its way back to me, so if I gave a bad one… sorry, not happening.
See, you’re not weird at all. It’s okay to try and keep work and friends a little seperate on social media. =)
I’m the same way. I have very few Facebook friends — just family and close friends. Then I manage another FB for my blog where people can follow. 🙂
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Oh, I completely agree with you. There are people that I actually DO know in person and I still don’t want to be facebook friends with them! LOL I totally get it. I do have a lot of feeds on mine because I follow a lot of authors and tattoo sites, but other than that, just my friends and family thank you very much. That’s what groups are for. Great post.
Same! I’ve had some people from my high school send me friend requests, but I ignored them because they weren’t people I actually spoke to back then. O_O
I try to keep my list strictly to people I consider my actual friends (in person) or family.
I barely use Facebook, but I have the same thoughts 🙂 I keep it for family and real life friends (some also happen to be a few bloggers.)
Hi Ashley, I am exactly with you on this! Really loved this post that expressed exactly my feeling about Facebook and my criteria. I wish there was a way to reply to the request to explain why I’m not accepting it instead of just ignoring it.
Yeah, I don’t list my Facebook profile on my blogging stuff. It’s personal, I post things about my kids on that. If I become friends with someone I meet in the blogosphere, then I may add them on Facebook, but it really just depends.
So, confession: I actually don’t have a Facebook. For some reason, my parents have been adamant about the fact that I never get one. Honestly, it would probably just be a huge time suck, so I’m not TOO concerned about it. *shrugs*
Regardless, I get the whole online/IRL struggle SO MUCH. I really struggle on Twitter with this, actually! I try to stay away from IRL friends following me- there’s literally only one person from my school that follows me (and some people I’ve met from book events, but I still consider them ‘bookish’ friends). I feel bad sometimes not following back or asking them to unfollow me, but I protect my bookish space freely. I just don’t want unnecessary judgement and all that crap. So I perfectly understand how you feel in regards to the opposite with keeping your Facebook for only people you know in real life.
Love this post, Ashley!! So relevant. <33
This is exactly why I have a facebook account under an assumed name. Thanks for putting it all in words!
I totally get this! I have a separate Twitter account for blogging, a Facebook page for me, a Facebook like page for blogging and an Instagram that has some crossovers, but not many. It can be hard to keep both “lives” separate, but I feel to a certain degree I need to. Obviously, some of the stalking incidents last year concerned me, but apart from that, I actually haven’t told many people IRL that I blog, so I like to keep some social media for me to geek out! R x
I actually have two. When I first started, I used my middle name (I was a lot younger and younger me thought that was safer :/ blonde moment). Anyway, I have the one for the blog where I have pretty much anyone on there. It lets me see all kind of new stuff and get involved in the blogging world separately. Then I have my at home one. The two don’t cross over. My phone always stays logged into the personal, and the blog on my computer. I get blog and personal space with a nice balance 🙂
I have to admit… I am really odd with my facebook too. I don’t have 1000 friends.. I have about 100. They are family or really close friends. I just don’t like anyone up in my business…. especially if we said hi once in high school 20 years ago.
I have two separate facebook profiles. One for blogging and one for RL friends and family, so that is not a problem for me at all. But If I only had one, I probably would be a lot more careful about who I accepted as friends, too, Ashley.
Oh, I feel the same way about Facebook. It is for people I know in real life even then I go through and delete people if I friended them “in the moment” but haven’t talked to them since. Between Twitter and all the other social media outlets, I figure Facebook is such a time-sucker that it can stay as a personal outlet only.
It appears I am in the minority here. I have a facebook page for my blog and a personal one under my real name, and when I comment on other blogs on facebook I always use my real name with an @back seats and airports–what to read in noisy places after my name so the blogger will know/recognize me as a blogger as well. I have never had any issues(knocking on wood) and have Become facebook friends with quite a few authors even. My twitter acct is for the blog but has most of my name; again, it doesn’t overly concern me…I guess because I never tweet anything of a personal nature.
YES. I’m a bit weird about it too. And I, erm, haven’t always been very conscious about who I befriend, so I’ve actually ended up unfriending a lot of people as I got older and realised I don’t want my feed clogged with people I barely know. That’s why I blog! And read other blogs! Although I’m such an antisocial nerd, I just go on facebook and like the Tumblr pages and spend my time there pretending I’m on Tumblr. SO I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT MY BRAIN IS DOING. XD
I am the same way! The only people I have are close friends too. I am even picky about people i knew from a long time ago.
Yes! I’m weird about Facebook too – but not in the way you are. I only add someone if I enjoy talking to them – I actually went and created a whole new profile where I can be ME. The one with my real name has all the people I feel obligated to have – coworkers (past & present), old acquaintances that either never quite became friends or no longer are, etc. The other facebook – which is the only one I really use – has my REAL friends. The people who I can be ME with. A lot of this also has to do with my day job being a teacher and how we’re supposed to be saints or something. So my real Facebook has only like 40 friends and I’d say half of them are people I know in real life. Some of the people I’ve never met feel like better friends than the ones I see all the time! Anyway, that’s a long way of saying I completely get being given weird about Facebook! Lol
I’m pretty much the same way. I hate to accept ppl I don’t actually know on facebook, although I have a few I accepted. But I put them in a group where their access to my info is limited. If someone wants to add me on Google+ or Linkedin, then that’s fine because I don’t have personal info up there. Plus on Google+ I have a page for the blog. I usually use that to follow Authors rather than my personal profile.
It’s *your* FB page and you can do what you want! I totally get it. What really bothers me is family/friends who get insulted when I don’t accept their request…or when I do — then they judge me for all my wackiness!
I’m like this too! I don’t personally add online friends using my Facebook account because I prefer to only add people I’ve met in real life. I know, it frightens me that these online friends might take it personally and against themselves, but it’s mostly because I like to keep my feed full of stuff from people I’ve met and known.
I am picky about facebook friends, but in general, if I know and like you in some capacity (work, blogging, wedding planning), I’ll add you as a friend. But I heavily utilize the list feature so I can maintain privacy controls without having to compromise who I add. The last post I made excluded “acquaintances” and “work”. I also might post so only “bookish peeps”, “bloggers” or “authors” can see it, obviously book-industry related. But I know some of my non-bookish friends don’t really want to see that stuff all the time.
I think a good compromise for not adding people is what I see a lot of authors doing: allowing people to follow them, so then their global posts are sent to those newsfeeds. It’s a handy feature.
Lol I feel the same way! I just ignore the friend request because for me, I use Facebook for family, friends, and relatives only…while Twitter is for blogging and non family related lol.
I 100% agree! Yes it is so awkward when I get the dreaded friend request! I actually googled how to gracefully decline and I came upon your post! I’m not sure I want to be friends with my kids friend parents!! Part of me thinks it’s just so they can get information! Oh and when they are through the honeymoon phase of being a new friend then they start the opposing comments on my posts!! My personal favorite is when I post a “rant” (my real friends get me) I will get a text “are you ok???”