I would like to read others' opinions about friend requests. My question is do you respond to a friend request from a member you have not read a post by or have any knowledge of. I realize there is a difference between cyber friends and real life friends. Friend has meant to me someone I admire their posts and any exchange we may have shared. On the other hand I do not want to reject someone out of hand that might need a friend. As usual I may be making a bigger deal over this but wondered what others thought. Thanks

I respond to friend requests here a bit differently than I do on Facebook or other sites. The one common thing I carry across all sites is that I need to have some sort of prior existing personal relationship with the person asking. To me a friend is that - a friend. Not someone who has randomly crossed my path and is interested in being my friend without even having said hello.

I get a LOT of friend requests from people I've never heard of, and have never spoken to. Those get ignored immediately.

On the Archive and other eunuch related places, I friend people I either have a personal connection with (IE I've met them in person), or shares my physical attributes (read - I reasonably believe they are missing some or all of the male parts).

The other group I may befriend here would be those guys I have spoken with long enough to believe they are truly desirous of being a eunuch or otherwise extremely modified in their genital region.

The rest? Well I welcome talking with them (after all, given what I said above how would I expand my friends list otherwise), but they shouldn't expect me to friend them after a "first date".

On Facebook, I have to have known the person in real life first - meaning I've actually met them in person.

--LT

I only noticed the "Add as Friend" option when The new layout came on line. I tried the Friend option, and was rejected, despite carrying on a pretty active dialog with the person for some time prior.

Some people feel it places an obligation on them. I wasn't offended. I realize that different people handle their online interactions in different ways. Though I admit, I've been less active in seeking conversation with this person since the rejection. Since my admiration of our conversation was clearly one sided.

As adding a friend seems to do nothing on this site other than place an icon in your user profile, I don't see it as much of a commitment.

I've only accepted 4 friend requests. Does the EA send me notifications about them?

Nope!

Am I forced to follow their every post.

Nope!

The only thing it does, is gives me a little icon I can click on in my profile page to see what you're up to. It is completely passive. Not like friends on Facebook. (I'm sick of that site, and it's constant nagging).

For what it is worth, I don't really care one way or the other. As long as it remains passive, I don't mind hitting accept on a friend request. I'm not trying to amass "friends" though. Since my initial experiment, I haven't sent a single request.

Despite that, I have made quite a few REAL friends from this site, and they're not necessarily the ones which I have approved a friend request for.

Since I would do anything for a friend I guess I would feel a sense of protectiveness for anyone I would declare a friend. I tend to be rather literal so a friend is a friend. I would not have as much trouble if say someone wanted to be an online buddy. If I call you friend you would be welcome in my home. We all know a lot of acquaintances that are nice people but not friends. Friends are someone you can count on when you are down and out. I think we need a different term for online people we like and would like to continue a discourse.

I think older members attach more significance to the status Friend so they agonize over friending people, but friend is now a FaceBook verb and you can easily unfriend people. Remember all the "friends" you have in preschool and first grade? You started weeding them out in high school; Face Book Friends are preschool friends, not members of your wedding party. Don't sweat it.

At 55 years of age and living before this technology it may have a different impact in our lives. It may be tougher not to sweat it.

what starts off as 2 people chatting can occasionally blossom into a proper friendship. even if someone becomes just an online acquaintance i think the friends feature is a good idea and gives the site a more communal feel.

I completely share cananite's view of facebook. I have a profile there but don't use it since having to tell one of my son's friends: "No, sorry. I don't want you to copy my family photo and re-blog it all over the place in order to embarrass my son" (which he was gleefully threatening to do). That, and being 'unfriended' by one of my sisters when she decided she wasn't speaking to me; plus facebook's nagging (as cananite puts it) emails, has been enough to cause me to have great reservations about the thing. I have since deleted all my pictures from the page and haven't used it since.

'Friends' on forums don't present such a problem. I don't usually accept 'friendship' requests from anyone I'm not on private messaging terms with, and I'll 'unfriend' a person if I can't remember why they're in my friends list. I probably ought to be able to do facebook with the same level of ease, but it is different. It seems all about self promotion (which is not what I'm doing here) and I find that a bit yuk if there aren't obvious commercial reasons for it. Or am I missing the point?