# De-friending someone of FB: WTF is the point? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 9, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-friending-someone-of-fb-wtf-is-the-point/630978 "2012-08-09T17:13:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-friending-someone-of-fb-wtf-is-the-point/630978/41 "2012-08-10T01:49:42Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > But you had to accept the friend requests before they just “showed up” on your feed. So why would you accept the requests of people you didn’t recognize? Because they told me their Doper-name. (Yes, I agree it’s illogical) ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-friending-someone-of-fb-wtf-is-the-point/630978/42 "2012-08-10T02:32:13Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > Because they told me their Doper-name. (Yes, I agree it’s illogical) Ok; I really am not trying to drag this small little insignificant thing out but I am still confused. _When_ did they tell you their Doper names? You still had to accept the requests made with their Facebook names and you did that. So how did you connect the Facebook names with the Doper names in order to accept the friend requests; which you then un-friended when you didn’t recognize? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-friending-someone-of-fb-wtf-is-the-point/630978/43 "2012-08-10T02:41:36Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Ok; I really am not trying to drag this small little insignificant thing out but I am still confused. _When_ did they tell you their Doper names? You still had to accept the requests made with their Facebook names and you did that. So how did you connect the Facebook names with the Doper names in order to accept the friend requests; which you then un-friended when you didn’t recognize? 😕 Message from Horace Lugnut III: Hi etv, it’s me - Ambivalid from the SDMB. Can I add you? etv: Sure. \ etv: Horace Lugnut III? Who on earth…? Must be someone from the SDMB I guess. Oh well -deleted- ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-friending-someone-of-fb-wtf-is-the-point/630978/44 "2012-08-10T03:11:21Z")
> [@Eliahna](#): > > Message from Horace Lugnut III: Hi etv, it’s me - Ambivalid from the SDMB. Can I add you? > > etv: Sure. > > \ > > etv: Horace Lugnut III? Who on earth…? Must be someone from the SDMB I guess. Oh well -deleted- Yes. I know **Eliahna** (unintentionally I hope) made it look worse than it really is. It’s more a matter of seeing the name out of context, and not recognizing it readily. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-friending-someone-of-fb-wtf-is-the-point/630978/45 "2012-08-10T03:24:07Z")
> [@Eliahna](#): > > Message from Horace Lugnut III: Hi etv, it’s me - Ambivalid from the SDMB. Can I add you? > > etv: Sure. > > \ > > etv: Horace Lugnut III? Who on earth…? Must be someone from the SDMB I guess. Oh well -deleted- Ok, gotcha. My slow mind has finally caught up. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-friending-someone-of-fb-wtf-is-the-point/630978/46 "2012-08-10T04:41:33Z")
One change Facebook made that I’m very happy about: all those Farmville and other game requests no longer appear on my “Wall” - they’re tucked away in a separate notification menu, where I can just ignore them. > [@Lancia](#): > > Now _that_ behavior I can understand getting rid of someone for. That’s leaps and bounds more offensive than a simple political disagreement. Yeah. I probably wouldn’t have been so “quick on the trigger” if the photo in question had been more ambiguous, like if only her face was visible. I mean, I’m guilty of seeing a nice butt and checking it out, only to get a better look at the girl it’s attached to and realizing, “Whoa, way too young!” and turning my attention elsewhere. But in this particular photo, my l’il niece was directly facing the camera and her whole body was in the frame. Even an 18- or 19-year-old should have been able to easily tell that this was a prepubescent little girl. > [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > The hardest one was when an old dear childhood friend made three moronic posts in a row: > -I’m not sure if this Middle Eastern woman can be a true Christian because she’s not American. Heh. That right there sums up the reason I no longer identify myself as either a Republican or an “Evangelical” Christian. (I was raised Republican but consider myself Libertarian; I was also raised “Evangelical” but my current beliefs are closer to Orthodox than anything else.) In the political/religious arena, I hold to the belief that Jesus is not an American 😛 > [@Ambivalid](#): > > But you had to accept the friend requests before they just “showed up” on your feed. So why would you accept the requests of people you didn’t recognize? I’ve got one woman on my friend list who was apparently in my high school class at my first high school (our “mutual friends” list would seem to bear this out), but damned if I can remember who she is/was. But she doesn’t post nonsense so I leave her on the list. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2012, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-friending-someone-of-fb-wtf-is-the-point/630978/47 "2012-08-10T13:02:47Z")
The friend and her grown children in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=532052). It happened a few weeks ago, I have remained friends with her and her kids on facebook. Well I never “de-friended her” and I very specifically kept the other links open in case the kids ever needed help. In fact the oldest son was supposed to come over and help me pack/move back in march and I was going to give him household stuff I was giving away. It just never worked out for timing.) There was a nice family picture of her and her three kids together. I commented on wow, how grown they are, how nice they look, etc and I got back a gigantic diatribe, from her, posted under his name about how terrible a mother I am, (the argument revolved around me working for a living and putting my child in day care instead of being home with my son.) How I have messed up my child’s life, never put my kid first, and that my comment (on how nice the family looks) is a load of bullshit. Although it was posted under the 20 year old’s name, it had to be her. Some of this was on the wall and some was in my “inbox”. It was pages and pages of deranged ranting garbage. I took some screen shots and deleted them. The whole family. Unfriended. I feel bad about the younger son, but honestly getting hate mail from a family I haven’t interacted with in 4 years was ridiculous. I wasn’t going to argue with crazy people, nor try to argue my parenting skills are at least equal to the woman who had her kids taken away from her for drug abuse and bad choices with men (violent offenders, drug dealsers) and had her house (inherited) seized by the city for non payments of property taxes, and so forth. My husband who kept peeking at the trainwreck saw she/he/they went on to attack the sister of my ex friend for also not being there for them. It was ugly and public. ---
**Author:** ![Cinnamon\_Imp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@Cinnamon\_Imp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Imp)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-friending-someone-of-fb-wtf-is-the-point/630978/48 "2012-08-11T19:03:55Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > Ok; I really am not trying to drag this small little insignificant thing out but I am still confused. _When_ did they tell you their Doper names? You still had to accept the requests made with their Facebook names and you did that. So how did you connect the Facebook names with the Doper names in order to accept the friend requests; which you then un-friended when you didn’t recognize? 😕 It’s actually funnier than that. He **sent** the original friends requests, to [300 Dopers](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12920156&postcount=48) - then defriended them less than two months later when he [couldn’t remember who he’d requested.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=585170) (posting as one of the 300 who’s still slightly weirded out by that) ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2012, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-friending-someone-of-fb-wtf-is-the-point/630978/49 "2012-08-12T00:46:34Z")
> [@Cinnamon\_Imp](#): > > It’s actually funnier than that. > > He **sent** the original friends requests, to [300 Dopers](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12920156&postcount=48) - then defriended them less than two months later when he [couldn’t remember who he’d requested.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=585170) > (posting as one of the 300 who’s still slightly weirded out by that) This is hysterical. ---
**Author:** ![Leiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2012, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-friending-someone-of-fb-wtf-is-the-point/630978/50 "2012-08-13T04:23:51Z")
I’ve defriended a few people over the years- generally the ones who friended me in their “I’ve just joined and will friend everyone I recognize the name of! Or even if not but they look familiar and went to my high school!” It seemed more useful than blocking them, since I don’t trust Facebook to remember my settings. Usually I just went ahead and took them off my list, but once I had to tell the woman why I was unfriending her, hoping it would get her to stop being quite so dumb. The woman in question considered herself very liberal, but posted some disgustingly homophobic stuff out of the blue one day. And it wasn’t a hacking, or a shared computer/wrong log-in situation- when I called her on it, she tried to tell me that as a bisexual woman she had every right to use the word “gay” as a derogatory phrase. Later, one of her friends messaged me to tell me that based on my profile pic (taken at a zombie walk) I was clearly a creepy loser and/or loner like the ones who shoot up schools. I could never quite figure out the point of that message. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2012, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-friending-someone-of-fb-wtf-is-the-point/630978/51 "2012-08-13T05:20:05Z")
**Cinnamon** -I knew it’s months too late, but sorry I offended you. P.S. it was only about 30 Dopers [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/de-friending-someone-of-fb-wtf-is-the-point/630978.md?page=2)