Friend Requests and Their Acceptance

On Twitter, people just follow you if they want and, likewise, you get to follow whoever you want in your Twitter stream. Unless everyone starts blocking everyone else, nothing can really be done about it. Besides, on Twitter that’s really the goal, to gain as many followers as possible to assist in whatever it is you’re wanting to achieve.

Facebook, however, is a completely different ballgame. This social media is not about networking so much as it is about friendships. Thus you don’t just follow people, you have to send Friend Requests and they have to be accepted. You, therefore, with the help that can be found in settings, have some control over who is able to see what you post. I suppose it’s because of that sharing of personal lives that many corporations have guidelines concerning social media and its employees. I’ve never been very big on anyone–government, businesses, Santa Claus–telling me what I can or cannot do on my own time. I also don’t like people telling me who I can or cannot be friends with. I want to make those poor choices on my own.

Still, I can understand why they feel that way. People can truly be idiots on Facebook and it doesn’t matter which rung on the corporate ladder they reside. Human Resources doesn’t wish to deal with the janitor shouting out how the manager was dancing on the table tops at the local club. It’s not good for the company image and HR worries about a possible barter system where favors are exchanged for silence. Of course, it would be great if this was something no one had to worry about, but adults still tend to behave like children. And yet, we are social people who wants everyone to like us and know that we checked in at Taco Bell. So, where do we draw the line?

I honestly believe that depends on you and what you are ready for the world to see, because even if you don’t accept their friendship, if someone else that you are mutual friends with comments or likes it, then there is a chance the one you’re not friends with could see it, regardless of your privacy settings. I’m of the mindset that if you put it on the Internet in the first place, you better be ready for your religious grandmother to see it. Nothing stays hidden forever especially online.

The truth of the matter is, it doesn’t matter whose friend request you accept. Live your life the way you want and own who you are. If you’re worried about people finding out, then you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. I know there are small-minded, prejudiced people out there, but why do you care what they think? And why allow other people to dictate who you can be friends with? That should be your only reason for accepting someone’s Friend Request, that you actually want to be friends with them. Do you want to be friends with them on Facebook? Then, by all means, be friends with them. Both of you behave like adults and prove that friends have each other’s backs online and off. We can be adults, right?

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