Do I accept a friend request from someone I don't know (or at least, don't think I know?) I do not.
Do I accept a friend request from someone who is a great friend and whose invite I've been expecting? I do.
But what about all those people in-between? The ones I'm more a passing acquaintance with or, in a few cases, whose presence brings back some past ugliness?
I have a couple hard and fast rules. One rule is that, no matter how often FB suggests you, if you work for me I don't initiate the friend request. If *you* initiate it then it's probably a yes. If you didn't work for me and now you do, I'm not hurt if you de-friend me. I know that the boss relationship can make the friend relationship a bit...um...awkward.
[Let me take moment here to let all of you who have been friends for a long time and are now navigating with grace the path of working for me AND being a friend that I am very very grateful. I'd hate to be losing friends faster than I make them simply because of a paycheck.]
Recently I found several friends on Facebook and I initiated "friend requests" and I was SCARED. It had been a LONG LONG LONG time and what if they didn't remember me? What if what they remembered was that they didn't much care for me and that's why we lost touch? (I know that's stupid - ALL of my friends will tell you that losing touch is almost always my fault...I've very bad about staying in touch with people...just ask my mom!)
One of them, after several weeks passed, said YES to my friend request. I can't tell you how excited I was to find him in the first place. He had a HUGE impact on my life - there is a part of who I am that was very much shaped by our relationship and I hold several memories very precious. Our lives changed and our paths parted but he never completely left my thoughts.
But as the weeks passed from the time I first asked him to be a friend I thought "oh, maybe what he remembers isn't as fond as what I remember." Maybe he was disgusted by the life/career choices I made and wanted nothing to do with the woman he last knew.
So his "yes" thudded through me like a drum and I was awash in relief.
Turns out that Facebook is full of people and some of those people MEAN something to other people. A lot of people on my friend list are those kind of people in my life. I am who I am today because of them.
And I know that the double blessing is that there are several people who friended me even though I have hurt them through the years. I wasn't always there when they needed me. I wasn't always who they needed when I was there. Sometimes I would get so caught up in my own dramas that I wouldn't pay enough attention to theirs.
So maybe, just maybe, Facebook will be the place where a few relationships are mended while others are rebuilt. Because these are people who mean something.
NL
