I see 2 requests in my Inbox, one from a poster I’ve never heard of, can’t find a single post that person has ever posted that I have responded to, and one from someone who seems to have left the board in 2017 - when I search for all posts those are the latest ones I see.
[Moderating]
Since this is a question about this message board, let’s move it to About This Message Board.
Mike, I just sent you a friend request. I don’t expect anything but board friendship. You seem nice. 
They mean people like you. They really like you.
Much love.
My birthday is just a month away, and traditionally my SDMB friends all get together for some beers (my treat). I cannot afford to pay their travel expenses, however.
Very few people use the feature, but if you go under your User Control Panel (UserCP on the upper left) then click on Profile Privacy (on the left), you will find various options for who can see what on your profile. For each option, you can have that portion of your profile visible by everyone, only by registered members, contacts, or friends.
Under Edit Options, you can also restrict PMs to friends and contacts. That will prevent anyone who isn’t on your friends list from sending you a PM (except moderators and admins, you can’t block us).
Other than that, it’s basically just the warm fuzzies of having a friend.
If you have never even heard of the person sending you a friend request, it could be from a spammer who is hoping to mine your profile for more personal info (maybe you’re e-mail address) or perhaps send you a spammy PM, or it could be someone who just happened to find one of your posts via google and maybe wants to talk to you more in private about it. Or maybe someone just really liked something that you posted.
It’s a trap!
I’ve only seen a few people here mention what they do with friends lists. It seems to be used to know when those people are online and as an easy way to find their posts. Having people in your friends list makes it easy to click on them to get to their post history.
I don’t think the friend connection has to be mutual. PersonA can add PersonB, but PersonB doesn’t have to add PersonA. It seems like they each have their own independent friend lists.
Sometimes people are still reading but not posting. Look at the Last Activity date in their profile to see when they were last viewing the forums.
That is correct. If PersonA has added PersonB but person B hasn’t added PersonA, then PersonB is a “contact” for Person A. If/when PersonB adds PersonA, then they both become “friends”.
You will see both friends and contacts listed in the various privacy options in your UserCP.
It usually means you started a thread asking about friend requests and I decided to request you and a couple others. In other words – pretty much nothing. 