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Comment by noduerme | Hacker News Reader

When I'm on FB, and Joe X sends me a friend request, it goes in my email. Since I'm on FB, the implicit assumption is that I got the request. If I think Joe is nice enough, but not really my friend, I'm suddenly forced to (a) accept a friend who's not my friend, and imply I like him more than I do, (b) reject the request and make him think I don't like him, or (c) lie and say I don't get facebook emails.

In reality, I would have far more options; there's a long gradient of subtle ways to let him know to what extent he's my friend or not. Most of all, I would have the option to defer making any kind of statement, assuming he's not a nutcase who asked me "so are we really friends?" And that deferral -- plausible deniability -- is the first thing FB takes away. That's what I call the freedom to be left alone.

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You are waaaaay overthinking this. Nobody thinks that a Facebook "friend" is the same as what you or I would call a friend in real life. For me, it means, "I know and like this person well enough". So I just accept most requests, as long as I have met the person and like them well enough.

Also, there is no "reject", there is only "ignore" (i.e., the person does not receive a "rejected" message, they'll just never get an "approved" message). And if someone doesn't respond to my friend request: who cares? It's just Facebook. It's not the be-all end-all social network manager; it's just a communication medium.

I am on Facebook and I don't get Facebook emails. You make a lot of assumptions about the platform you are not using.

weirdly, I get weekly updates from them even though I'm not on it, because someone signed me onto a corporate account. I get the constant linkedin "you might know Joe" emails too, so I though that was a reasonable assumption.

BTW @ the guy who called me a sociopath: Not all relationships are black and white. There's such a thing as being polite to someone at parties and still not wanting to know every detail of their life.

That's strange. I created a fake account some years ago, to contact some old friends whose email I had lost. I used the account for almost one week. To this day I still get a facebook email every 4-5 days. If nobody invites me to a group (!?) or posts new photos in their gallery, then it's facebook itself who wants to remind me that it's been a long time since the last time I logged in, and my friends are waiting to hear from me!

If the freedom you are most concerned about losing is the freedom to lead other people into believing they are your friends when you really don't care about them, you might be a sociopath.

Maybe he wants to be nice? Facebook fails at nice, that's mostly why I quit. Seems the guy who made it is probably a bit of a sociopath, your only two options are "Friend!" or "Fuck off!" and I think that contributes a lot to the general loathing of the site.

But isn't that how every site ever works? How would it even work otherwise?

I'm starting to think people here are just overanalyzing.

It is not being imposed up on. If you are on FB, it is a system you are willing to participate in. You are not obligated to communicate either way.

An analogy that I can think of in the real world similar to what you are saying is, when I go to the mall, I like a hassle free shopping. Which means, I don't like to be bothered by sales/stores clerk. When I am at Macy's it is just a matter of time when a store clerk walks up to me to find out if I am finding everything allright. Now I can go ahead and be rude to that person considering he/she is intruding, or fake to be nice to quickly move on.

The point is going to the mall was my decision and I chose to go, very aware of what the system has. You can't be bothered about what someone else thinks when you really don't care much about them. Ignoring a friend request is a valid option.

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