STARTING 4/8/17: Six Word Saturday is now being hosted by the lovely Debbie at Travel With Intent.

Monday, November 09, 2009

Is nothing sacred?

Yesterday, I received the following email. "Hi Cate! Your Mother added you as a friend on Facebook. We need to confirm that you know Your Mother in order for you to be friends on Facebook."

Ugh. Really? Admit in public that this woman gave birth to me?

Friend?!?!?

And she chose a photo that looks like a mug shot for some reason. I really don't need that staring at me every time I open the site.

Fortunately, I don't really use Facebook much. I use it more to stalk keep in touch with other people than I do to post intimate details or play games or whatever. That's because I realize in a professional capacity, I don't need people seeing that "Cate called in sick because she's hungover" or "Cate thinks her boss sucks at life". Mostly I post things like "Cate is running amok" or "Cate isn't allowed to play with fire" because that's way better.

Some of you were lucky enough privy to a Twitterbarf session about my mother a couple of weeks ago. The history is long and complicated but the less she infiltrates bits of my daily life, the better. Facebook isn't somewhere she needs to be.

Seeing her smiling face may have just ended my association with Facebook for good.

Anyone on Facebook that you feel like you can't not accept as a "friend" that you'd really rather just avoid altogether? What do you do?

21 comments:

Unknown said...

Pretend you never saw the friend request and hit ignore. Oops. I have done that to co-workers. Shhh don't tell.

Ryan Ashley Scott said...

Currently, there are 3 friend requests sitting unreplied because I either can't remember who the heck they are OR they are people I've never met in real life and don't add them because I use real names. It's weird to think someone has gone looking for me, found my real name (not that hard, as I have shared links with it - but still) and now want more private information.

If you don't reply at all, maybe she'll just think you don't use it anymore.

Unknown said...

there was too much stress involved when i wanted to kick people (including my sister) to the curb.

so i deleted all of my friends, except for the boyfriend. that way nobody felt singled out.

take that mo'fo's!!!!!!

i have lightened up slightly since then, and have allowed 3 bloggy friends into my kingdom and 1 irl aquaintance who i don't get to see often at all.

but i'm always one step away from scrapping the whole stupid thing.

did that help?

glad to be of service;)

andrea <3

blognut said...

There's always the 'ignore' button, Cate. Seriously.

Toni said...

Uh oh.

I will not accept MOST of my husbands family. They're very nosy and VERY judgmental and very annoying and I don't want their noses in ANY of my business. Because since we've moved away from them we're bad people and other should stay away from us.

ANNOYING. (Now I think I may need blood pressure medication to bring mine down. lol)

kim said...

if you ignore it, then you run the risk of her asking you "didn't you get my FB friend request??" and if you say you didn't, then she'll just say she'll send it again....and so on and so on.

I'm not sure there's an easy solution to this one Cate :(

Annelie said...

Ignore. I do it all the time. Shamelessly.

If you happen to run into an "ignored" person (who has the audacity to ask), you just say "oh, that is my professional/work account - no personal friends/family" or the other way around.

Juniper Saltus said...

I feel the same way. My mother never uses her Facebook though. So it really doesn't matter that she is on my friends list. I mean, hell, she doesn;t even have a profile pic so I don't even have to see her face.

But yes, hit the ignore button and play dumb.

jabblog said...

Yes, I too have 'friends' that I don't really like on Facebook but was too cowardly to reject. Do as Betty does - and I have done in the past and then rescinded *sigh*.
I hardly use Fb now anyway . . . well, just to see what family have been up to . . . unless of course they've blocked me :-/

silver star said...

I hesitated at first when Facebook suggested the boss I had this summer be a friend, so I waited to accept him after I picked up my last check. I've had problems with family and in-laws because of things I posted on Myspace, so I'm more careful about that on Facebook. I hope none of them know about my twitter or blog, I still need a place to really speak my mind w/o being harassed!

Nessa said...

Thank goodness my mom doesn't even know what a computer is.

Meet My Mates #3 - Quilly

Mr. Condescending said...

Is facebook worth it? It seems like everything is so filled with drama!

Margaret said...

I don't except them as a friend. It may be rude or whatever but I always go with how I feel.

SparkleFarkel said...

This is WAAAY too bad.

C. Beth said...

I've been pretty lucky that I haven't had too many awkward friend requests. But I'm also lucky that both of my parents are sane and nice. If they were somewhat less sane or nice I might be in a quandary.

(Did you know that's how "quandary" is spelled? I didn't.)

Matty said...

I have a FB account, but I rarely if ever use it. I initially went on because of some family members doing it. When I started, I only used it to connect with long lost people from high school and college. That was it. Once I made those initial connnections, I stopped using it. As for friend requests, I usually accept if I know them because I don't use FB anymore anyway. Any my parents don't even have a computer, so not to worry there.

Cate said...

I feel the same way Cate. Mine has infiltrated my myspace page, my twitter, I do NOT have a FB. I just hope she stays the hell away from my blog! ;)

I've always felt obligated to 'yes' accept her 'friendship' requests even though she has never been my friend. I'm getting older now, and a bit tougher so from now on, I'm just gonna hit the 'ignore' button and hold on to what's left of my sanity! :)

Melissa B. said...

I have a FB account, only to keep in touch with former students. Well, it did come in handy last May, when I was having that contretemps with Principal Man. Quite the tool to generate a lot of Pro-Scribe e-mails in a hurry!

Bridgette said...

I taught for 3 years and I saw a child that went to my school on FB. She is 8! Anyway there was no way I was going to add her!

betty said...

I totally understand where you are coming from; I dumped Facebook because I didn't want my siblings to know what I was up to (I dumped them first, LOL, canceled them as friends). I don't like Facebook, don't like the openness of it, like how people can read your walls, etc. I have a cute story about that which I plan to blog about soon :)

I think you should be comfortable with who you allow on there, even if it is your mom that you choose not to accept as a friend

betty

Anonymous said...

Ha!
My mom knows better.
She knows I'd deny her LMAO.