I am just wondering if anyone else has faced this problem, or if I should take it personally. We are encouraged here to accept others on the site as friends…so when you send out an invite to be friends, why do people ignore them? Granted it’s tedious business, accepting all the time, but I had some that were from way back in january waiting to be accepted or rejected. Can there be a time limit on t hem, like three weeks, and if someone doesn’t respond, they are automatically dropped from your list, not the site, the list of the inviter. I’m beginning to feel as if no one wants to be my friend…:o(…just wonderin’.
Wow! The age of social networking! I’m probably going to get slammed for this, and I’m sure my opinions are very much in the minority so you can ignore me, but I have absolutely no interest in this whole “friends” thing and I certainly don’t base my value or worth on how many people want to be my “friends” on various social networking sites. This whole thing of accumulating “friends” or “subscribers” or whatever the heck they are called seems very adolescent to me. When I first heard of Facebook it was something kids did and was cute. Now it seems absurd to me that mature adults with busy lives would care about accumulating “friends” on social networks…I mean really care! Friends to me are people you know in real life who you sit with, hug, call at midnight if you’re scared, play with their children, know for years and years hopefully, sleep on their couch when you’ve moved miles away and come back to visit. They are not nicknames on a website. I’m not saying I don’t value the input of many of the people on this board or consider TuDiabetes an enormous support and wonderful site. I do. But it is not life! I also have no interest in blogs. All of a sudden everyone is a writer. Not really. Who has the time or interest to read all that self-absorbed stuff? I don’t and I’m retired! I hate when someone posts a thread that consists of just a link to a blog. Post to the board! That’s what it’s for! When I accepted friends suddenly my mailbox was filled with everyone’s blogs, daily experiences and every thought and whim. I personally wish you could just exchange a message with someone now and then without having to become “friends”. There are times I want to comment privately to someone about something but find I can’t do that unless I invite and they accept my :“friendship”. It all seems very silly to me.I noticed one woman whose profile said she had travelled a lot to Guatemala. At the time I was living in Guatemala so I thought it would be fun to communicate and I invited her. She never accepted. So what. She either never even looks at the invite box or she has a life. So if anyone has invited me and I’ve ignored you please don’t take it that I “don’t want to be your friend” or “I don’t like you”. I don’t know you.
Ok, start the flames!
I give each 3 weeks then I go in and deleate my request. I think that’s enough time for ppl to accept or not. I know some ppl can’t get to the computer at times and then they have to wait for a little while to accept or ignore then but 3 weeks is plenty of time for me to wait and on ning your only allowed to send out 100 request or it will stop letting you send them out so I tend to start deleating after I get up to 100 request out. Yes I’ve had the same problem and still do but…
Hi cathy,
I always accept when people ask to be my friend because I think it’s fun. I agree that some people may be busy or not into that but I think most people like to talk about common issues.
There’s only 1 friend request I never accepted, for personal reasons… Other than that, I wouldn’t take it too personally. People may be really busy, or they may not even have noticed they have a friend request pending – sometimes I miss them. Or who knows if some people are put off by the absence of a picture. If anything else, you’re a great lady… and I love reading what you have to say… So whoever may not want to be your friend, on purpose, well, it’s their loss. 
It’s just a site where we share. Try not to worry about it so much.
This is a very rude post.
I know and understand your frustration with people who are obsessed with hording friends, but Cathy is NOT a friend hoarder. I am sure she is relatively knew to all this online community stuff (as some of us have been a part of real online communities for more than 15 years), and is simply trying to understand the mechanisms of things.
Maybe online communities are not for you, but some of us have built huge friendships, and relationships that we would have never ever been able to build without the internet. I have 15 year old, deep friendships, through various boards, internet relay chat, etc, which have been there more for me than anyone who could live across the hall from me. I even met my husband on the internet.
So… if you find no merit or value on actually building strong friendships or relationships on the internet, that’s fine… But please, be polite in your disagreements… and do not call people ‘adolescent.’ Is your opinion so important that you have to make someone feel bad, in order to express it?
I don’t think so. Keep it in perspective.
Liz
Just gotta say this! I have bunches and bunches of friends here but their all here to help one another and that’s the reason I’m here too and will be their “friend” for awhile! These ppl here are great at helping. I never understood Type 1,5 or Type 2 til I got here and now I know that there is other Types out there besides Type 1. I felt so alone for YEARS but found this site to where we all have ONE THING in commom and that’s the diabetes factor. I think it’s good to have all these friends who have walked the same path as me! Not only am I a Type 1 but so is my daughter and alot of Type 2’s in my family also. That after being here for awhile I now understand is a totally different thing… If you haven’t been through alot of what I have you don’t know how to deal with it and I’m glad to help out other’s who are going through it and the ones who have been through it and now talk about it. FOR YEARS AND YEARS I DIDN’T but here with other’s who have the same (or had the same) problems I can>
Yep done that too! LOL Danny!
Zoe, I don’t think I will slam you…it’s you. You are not the person who wants to have a slug of friends on any site, and that’s fine. You come for the information, for the community and that’s that. Do it…it’s what you make of it.
Thanks Lizmari. Having BPD along with diabetes, makes us (me) question my value by the way people treat me. It’s all part of the alphabet soup I walk around with. Zoes’ comments were definitely unkind, but then they are hers, and that’s that. I appreciate your kind remarks. I asked the question because I can’t add anything to my little site here, because I had over 100 “friends” waiting to accept, like I said some back to January, just wondered what happened to them all. Thanks again.
Good idea, can you help me get that done? I have many sites that offer pics that you can chose from, yet I have no idea how to do my own photo. I’m not a computer savy person…that would be my kids.
I don’t feel I was being rude, Lizmari, because my comments weren’t an attack on a person, but (somewhat dismayed) comments on a cultural phenomena. If anyone (such as you Cathy) took it as a personal affront, I am sorry.
I feel sometimes like the one pointing out that the emperor has no clothes on when it comes to some cultural trends. There was a short story written in the 1910s or 1920s called The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. I used to recommend reading it to people because it is, basically, about the internet written a hundred years ago! It depicts people who never (ever!) leave their rooms where they interact with others on their machines (computers). It is an anti-utopia and in the end the machine breaks and everyone is forced to leave but then they see the lovely dawn and the trees once again after years. I feel like we are getting dangerously close to that world. But then that is just me; I also think cell phones are one of the worst inventions yet with everyone constantly chatting away or texting while driving (despite it being illegal), putting everyone at risk and making us all listen to their inane loud conversations in public places. Maybe I’m just getting old. Or maybe progress for progress’ sake is not always an improvement.
Zoe , I did not see your observation as a personal attack .I know for a fact, my Husband’s thinking is actually hundred and fifty percent the same as yours ; he never uses our computer for communicating as I do; word processing is his forte …Being misunderstood , without an instant reply , without eye contact , other body language messages is all too easily misinterpreted .
Not a cell phone in our home either.
And we are likely older than most of the folks using the technology and so be it .
By the way , I need to respond to TU messages I have in my box .
I hardly think Zoe’s comment was rude. It wasn’t directed to anyone else but spoke solely about how the concept of ‘friends’ in the social networking phenomenon affects her. Just her.
Of course the fact that I agree with Zoe’s sentiments might affect my perception!
I have many on-line ‘friends’ and, excluding people I already knew in the real world, I’ve only met three or four of them. Most of these friendships are based on no more than a single exchange on a message board. We wouldn’t recognize each other if we passed on the street. This is a friend? If either of us asked the other for a loan we’d be unfriended as quickly as we were friended, and for a better reason! None of them would babysit my kids, they never invite me to their parties or send me a birthday greeting or ask me how my parents are doing (they’re fine, by the way).
For ME. (Note that I said ‘for ME’ not ‘for everyone’) the value of social networking is in the network itself. It’s a place where like minded or like situated people gather. Much like a church, I don’t know everyone there, but I know what we share in common. Making ‘friends’ with people shouldn’t be tedious, or a business, or an obligation. If making friends becomes a goal, that’s a good thing for people who need friends or who genuinely have an affinity for the people they befriend. But collecting them just to have them, not that anyone here does that, and fretting over their number makes ‘friendship’ seem more like a hobby than friendship.
That’s why, unless I’m specifically named or targeted, I try not to take things personally on the social sites I belong to. There are nearly 15,000 members here and it would be fruitless for me to worry about whether one of the thousands of posts entered daily were meant for me personally. I’ve sent friend requests that have not been answered. No problem. I sent it mostly to let someone know I agree with something they’ve written. If they ignore it, they have their own reasons having nothing to do with me. They don’t know me. (Their loss, anyway. ) If someone sends me a friend request, I’m pleased and flattered and I’ll generally accept. It MIGHT develop into something. Probably not. But it’s happened. Still, I don’t really flatter myself that the person knows anything about me whatsoever or that they actually LIKE me. They don’t even KNOW me.
As for the practical matter of a time-out on friend requests, I think that’s the GREAT idea, Cathy. I’m sure it could be done.
Terry
i agree Cathy, accepting a friend request on an online site like this easy to do. if you do not act on the request, or don’t visit the site it is rather rude to just leave it sitting. perhaps an invite expiration, or dropping it from the pending request page, or a “last login” date on each profile would be useful. i am on Facebook and Myspace, and rarely request a friend sho i can see has not logged activity for over a week,
To those who think “Friending” is silly, to each their own. it gives me a way, in my short bit of free time each night, to catch up with a lot of people at once. People i care for, people i have common interests with, people i have met online, but never in person, people in other parts of the country, other countrys, around the world. That is one of the reasons I chose this site, i am hoping that i can make online friends who can share with me about diabetes, and i can share with them. Perhaps some friendship may eventually extend offline too. I met my wife on Facebook.
Thanks, guys. It definitely wasn’t a personal attack. On the other hand I know that I can be fairly judgmental at times and that can offend people when it is regarding something they themselves like. I used to make comments when my coworkers would bring fast food back for lunch, to the effect of “ewwww, how can you eat that stuff?” While I certainly stand by my opinion of fast food, it was a bit of a putdown to people eating it. I try and restrain myself…honest!
'Speaking of junk food I just had some sobering news. I was having lunch with some people I worked with about 12 years ago and we were catching up on various colleagues. They mentioned Marvin who had diabetes. It surprised me that I barely remember Marvin having diabetes and I think this is partly my memory, but more so that diabetes was just not on my radar screen back then! I do remember that Marvin ate a lot of junk food. Well, Marvin went out on disability a couple years ago because he is now 75% blind. He is probably around 50 now. It made me really sad to hear that when I know it could have been prevented.
I wouldn’t take it personally. I’ve never heard from 98% of the people who have sent me friend invites here, which is fine. I send a friend invite when I want to correspond privately. That’s the advantage of the friend feature to me.
I have no interest in Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or blogging. To tell the truth, I feel invaded when I receive Facebook invites from people I don’t know & don’t care to know. Realize it’s most probably a generational thing, but the blurring between public & private bothers me.
I’ve thought about this topic a lot. I love FB, and have 50 friends. And they are all my real friends or relatives. No sort-of friends, no hangers-on, no collecting. I refuse many invitations.
I take the complete opposite approach here on Tu and friend anyone who asks me. (Excpet for that one fellow, but since we’d just been in a knock-down, drag-out, I genuinely figured his asking to be my friend was an error on his part.)
However, for the first month or so, I did not accept any invitations. I didn’t get it. In the nicest way possible I thought, “I don’t know you, Why would I want to be your friend?” Then I thought, “What the hell, Cindy, just try it.” Then I got an email from Alan that made me laugh my socks off, and I did a little trial and sent all my Tu friends new of Clara’s great A1c. 2/3 of them sent me happy messages within 24 hours. Tony even included a congratulations to her on a Ping demonstration video he made. What a fun thrill!
Even though we have 14K members, I see a lot of the same names over and over. Probably most people are not very active on the site. That could be another reason for not friending.
While I can understand that seeing open invitations day after day (month after month) might be discouraging, I think you should rescind your invitation and move on.
And I agree with Danny: get a photo. It’s probably not stopping people from friending you, but it seems more friendly. Let him tell you how, since he offered.
Now I don’t want to grab away your thread, but I have a related question: how can you unfriend someone who is your friend. Someone was driving me batty sending crabby emails to all her friends, then I was getting a bunch of responses, and I couldn’t figure out how to un-friend her.
You go to their profile, and right under their picture there are a number of options… One of them is to remove as a friend.
Hi Cathy: I bet you end up with a lot of friends after this post! I do think there is a generational thing going on, and of course everyone is entitled to his/her opinion (but I am also glad that Zoe is my TuD friend!). I like having TuD friends, and the ones that I have the most interaction with center around yoga and also people with adult-onset Type 1 like me. Anyhow, Cathy, I hope you get LOTS of friends and I agree that a photo would be good–take up those offers of assistance.