Strangers on the line

I love facebook, I really really do. Where else could you find lost friends from sandboxes of time and stumble upon people you once had a drunken conversation with in a crowded night club bathroom while you're both dancing with the need to pee. It's also the perfect place to stalk people while pretending to be their friends. I do it, you do it, we might as well be honest about it.

What I don't understand is the friend requests from friends of friends or facebook's own suggestions of "people you may know". Firstly, friends of friends aren't necessarily my friends. Just because we share an acquaintance, it doesn't mean we should be friends. I recently got a friend request from my friend's work mate who then sent me three subsequent messages asking me why I had turned him down (his wording, not mine) as a friend. Ha was quite frankly starting to scare me...


I'm sure facebook had the best of intentions when introducing the "people you may know" feature. But let's face it, if I haven't friended someone by now, I'm quite unlikely to friend them now. What truly baffles me is these people who I have 18 or 15 or more friends in common and still, I haven't a clue who they are. The case of one girl, we have gone to the same school, known the same people and obviously frequented the same bars, shops, restaurants and cafes for quite some time. I can honestly say I do not know her. We even had a laugh about it on facebook. We're now facebook friends.


But it did get me thinking. How come our paths never met? Surely she was at the house party to end all house parties (which it did, mainly because of the fire), I know I was, as was the entire town. She was only one year below me in secondary school, and it was a small school. Everyone knew everyone else, at least knew their faces if not their names. Maybe I was such a self-absorbed little twat that I only cared about my own clique and nobody outside said clique mattered to me? Or maybe it was her who was oblivious to my presence? I obviously didn't miss her as a friend, nor did she miss me. It's just funny in a way, to be in such close proximity to someone for years and never meet, only to be introduced to each other via a social networking tool.


Just so you know, she's a lovely girl and we exchange quite a few messages every week. I daresay more than I do with some of my "live" friends in fact.