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Comment by harryf | Hacker News Reader

Been free of Facebook for more than 3 years. There's never been a single moment where I felt I was missing out. Even the staying in touch - for those that matter we found other ways to stay connected.

The final straw for me was actually a girl from my elementary school who wanted to friend me. The chat went like this...

Me: I have to ask you something. So we haven't seen each other for decades, the last time being when we were 7 year olds. Back then we probably exchanged less than 100 words. I don't mean to be rude but I'm genuinely curious to know why you want to connect with me?

Her: Oh I'm sorry. Didn't mean to offend

And that was it. She didn't have a reason other than "just because". That was when it really clicked for me what an utter waste of time Facebook actually is.

Never looked back

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Sorry, that was a pretty mean response. Maybe she scoped you out and thought you were cute? Maybe she's just trying to make new friends and remembered you being nice? Why wouldn't she just say that to you? (instead of sorry, didn't mean to offend)? Probably because your response made her go "oh crap, this guy is an a-hole - bail) That's exactly what my response would be.

Or maybe Facebook's "Add Friend" feature suggested GP to the girl.

Honestly that's de facto a pretty dick move, despite whatever might make sense in an ideal world

A pretty dick move on her part for wanting to be included in a complete strangers personal circle?

I think that questioning the motive was justified.

>A pretty dick move on her part for wanting to be included in a complete strangers personal circle?

No, a pretty dick move to piss on her for asking to reconnect with an old schoolmate with a rude response.

FB is not some "personal circle". People connect to wide circles of accountancies they barely meet once in a decade and old schoolmates from way beyond and such all the time. And if one doesn't, it's still perfectly fine, given the widespread practice, for others to assume that it's ok for them to ask.

No other motive needed other than we're all humans, and we tend to think of people that passed through our lives in some way or another, and might want to occasionally catch up and/or share some old-time story.

No further need to "question the motive" (as if she's some huge scammer) than to question "high school reunions".

In the end, one could just ignore the request, or reply politely ("Sorry, I only add close friends and relatives on FB").

Could not have said it better myself.

To me, simply asking the question seems a bit 'off'. I mean, what do you mean 'final straw'? It bothers you that someone has some mild curiosity about what you've been up to? I probably wouldn't respond to that either. Sometimes you're just curious what that kid in your ____ grade class that you never really spoke to is up to. For whatever reason. I just assume that if they are the 'Facebook is only for close friends' type, then they will simply not accept the request. No big deal. I accept requests from people I don't necessarily know that well, but share some kind of background with (went to school together, used to be coworkers, etc.). I also know people who don't, and that's totally fine too. But they don't get offended by getting requests from people they don't necessarily know that well.

There's nothing nefarious about it. If I got your question, I'd be torn between just saying "just curious what you have been up to for ____ years, that's all," and her response, because the question in and of itself seems kind of unusual.

>And that was it. She didn't have a reason other than "just because"

It's not like you need to have some huge reason to want to connect to some people on FB. It's not about being some big taskforce or goal-oriented group of connection.

Sometimes you just lookup people that were in you life to catch up, and see what they're up to. Or to make sense of what your life was, and the people that might have influenced it, or took part in it.

As I wrote elsewhere here, I don't think FB is any real platform to affect change or share opinions (it's at best an echo chamber, at worst nobody cares).

But for casual chat, it doesn't hurt to add some "girl from elementary" school or random acquaintance in your Friends list. It's not like they have to justify their presence in utility. One can just ignore their posts.

I agree that there are ways to stay connected with the ones who 'matter'. However to me, there are many people who 'don't matter', yet with whom I'd like to stay in touch. In other words, I see three types of relations instead of 2. And for this type of inbetween 'people who matter' and 'people who I generally know but whom I don't want to meet', I am not willing to pay the extra effort of maintaining the connection without facebook.

Maybe she had a little crush on you at the time, so her memory of you holds more weight in her mind than your memory of her does in yours.

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