I had a “friend request” from an apparant stranger recently, which made specific reference to a sex move of mine, called by a name that is (as far as I know) only known to three people on the planet.
(That sounds a bit braggy - please be assured that it’s nothing particularly exotic, but it’s apparently unusual enough to warrant comment.)
I’m not credulous enough to take this at face value. (ie; Someone I have no direct connection with saying, "I’ve heard so much about this _____, and I’d like to meet you.) I’m pretty sure it has do be someone that I’ve been very close with, messing with me for fun. (Did I mention that I’ve been at home without my wife & baby for a couple weeks?)
I don’t think it’s my wife, because of the way it’s written. (English is her second language, and this doesn’t seem like something she would write.) Maybe an ex-girlfriend, playing a joke?
Anyway, I’m not going to reply, because that would open up my profile for whoever it is, and I’m not sure that’d be a good thing.
Soemthing that I noticed, though - one of my ex-girlfriends (and some of her friends) has been showing up in my “Friend Suggestions” list lately. Her profile is open, though - and I can confirm that we don’t have any mutual friends. I had always assumed that friend suggestions were based on who is in your friends list. (You know a, b, and c, and they all know d.) Are there any other ways that people end up on the suggestion list? (Eg, looking at your public profile, etc.)
Friend suggestions aren’t just by what people you and someone else have in common. Suggestions are sometimes based on what city you live in or what college or high school you attended. If you’ve put this stuff in your profile.
The rest of your post I can’t comment on. You’re the one with 100% of the relevant information with regards to it. If someone is messing with you, then ignoring it sounds best to me. If someone just got really lucky in guessing your move, then ignoring them is still best because they’re not someone you know.
Anecdote: I’ve gotten a friend request from someone name P-Low Loco. He had no connection to me, either through city, high school or college and he didn’t look at all familiar. He had less than ten friends at the time and at least one of them was one of my friends, but I am still convinced we had no connection.
Before accepting/denying the request I sent him a message saying saying “Who is this?” he replied, “P-Low Loco”. Lot of help that was douchebag. So I send another message, “Do I know you?” his response, “No.”
So I blocked him.
Few months later I get another friend request. This time from someone named P Low Loco. No dash inbetween the P and Low. The picture was of the same guy and I just blocked him right off the bat that time.
Also, friend suggestions can come from somebody recommending that friend to you. In fact, that’s the only way you’ll get that little notification at the top telling you how many friend suggestions you have.
Covered_In_Bees!: You probably appeared in the guy’s Suggestions (formerly “People you may know”), if he only had 10 friends. In my experience, it’s always either someone who found me attractive, or somebody trying to scam me. I’m pretty sure people know when you block them, so the second time does seem quite fishy. But I’ve accidentally tried to add someone I forgot didn’t want to add me. And got accused of being a stalker for it. I actually told her I’d prefer just to be blocked.
Facebook does not notify the other party when they’re blocked or unfriended, which is part of its popularity. There are one or two people I’ve unfriended who keep sending me friend requests. One of the more persistent people got blocked. Big T, if a friend has suggested that you friend someone, the message from Facebook will tell you. “So-and-so has recently friended X and thinks you may know them, too.” I tend to get these requests from Dopers who are making suggestions based on that (we MADs are a fairly tight bunch); from relatives who suggest other relatives; or from one or two specific people who are introducing me to people in their network who they think would be good for me to know.
I’ve never been able to make sense of Facebook’s recommendation algorithm. Some of them make a lot of sense when there is more than one mutual friend, but others don’t.
I’ve had a Facebook page since almost the beginning but I only really started using it a few weeks ago. After 3+ years with 15 Friends I now have almost 70 because of a project I’m working on.
I never paid attention to that Friend Suggestion area until one day in early August I looked at it for a lark. There was a woman on there who used to work with my husband in the late '80’s, and we’ve stayed with her when we visited Boston a couple of times. Other than that we’ve had no major contact, and we had no Facebook friends in common. It weirded me out as to how, out of all the people in the world, Facebook could have known that we might know each other. Turns out my e-mail address was in her Yahoo address book from the e-mails concerning one of our visits.
If someone else opens up their address book to Facebook (which is a big, “yikes, who would DO that?!?” to me) and you’re in their address book, even if you’ve had no contact for ages, there you go. Would you have been in this person’s address book?