The five types of Facebook friend requests

It seems like most people these days have a Facebook account. You can search for pretty much anyone from your past/present (or future if you are planning on doing some serious stalking) and chances are that you will find their profile. Quite scary, yet cool!

It's also cool when you login to Facebook and you notice at the top of your screen that you have a friend request. Curiosity and a bit of excitement overcome you as you think to yourself, "Hmmm, who might this be? Which person is requesting to be my friend and should I give them this honour?". You click on the friend request icon/link and you see one of the following:

1.) A friend from the present
"Oh cool, Ryan sent me a friend request!"
When you first sign up to Facebook you will get a lot of these - they are great. You know the person and you most likely see them fairly regularly. This is a friend request that you are probably expecting.

2.) A friend from the past
"Merle sent me a friend request, I remember her from Primary School!"
These requests are also quite exciting, after all, this is someone you know from your younger days. Maybe someone from Primary School or a next door neighbour in your old neighbourhood. The problem with these friend requests is that most of these people you haven't seen in a very long time and chances are that you will never see them again, let alone write on their Wall.

3.) A random person that you met through a friend
"Who is this? Oh, it's that random dude that is friends with Merle."
I always take a minute to think about these requests. I met this person once, we maybe chatted briefly and now they want to be Facebook friends?! Unless you really liked the person for whatever reason, I would suggest declining the request because you will probably never speak to them!

4.) An even more random person
"Ummm..."
This is someone that you don't know at all, you maybe see them regularly somewhere but you don't talk to each other. An example: I got one of these friend requests from someone at the gym recently - very weird!

Lastly,

5.) "Cool" kid from school who never said a word to you
"You cannot be serious..."
The most confusing one of the lot in my opinion! If they never bothered to say a word to you at school (some never even made eye contact!), then why would they want to be friends all of a sudden? Is it a case of "You weren't cool at school, but you're alright now"? Decline!

Obviously there are a lot more different types of Facebook friend requests, but these are the ones that came to mind straight away.

Conclusion:

As a general rule, if you wouldn't speak to the person in real life then don't accept the friend request. This rule can also be applied if you are planning on requesting someone as a friend!

See you on the 'Book...