robotech_master

So I just received a notice that I was friends listed by someone named silent_and_calm. (I guess that's better than "silent but deadly".) Curious, I went to his LJ to check him out, and noticed that he had, as of this writing, put 733 people on his friends list. Why? At first I couldn't guess, then I saw a comment on one of his posts saying something about using a serial adder, so I googled a little and found this bit of info. Cute.

( A surprising number of people took offense at being friended. )

I was honestly startled by all the people who said, "Unfriend me," as if they somehow had a right to expect their dictates would be obeyed. They seemed to believe that you're supposed to ask permission before you friend someone. What's up with that? I never do. It's part of the whole social networking system of LiveJournal that people can friend whoever they want, whether they ask permission or not. It doesn't necessarily mean that they know each other, it just means that the friendee said something that the friender found worthwhile enough not to want to miss future posts. It doesn't affect the friendee in any way, other than that his posts will appear on the friender's friends page, and the friender's name will appear in the friendee's user profile.

I actually rather like it when a complete stranger friends me, it means I'm being read. Now granted, it probably doesn't so much in this case (though silent is perfectly welcome to prove me wrong by commenting here!), but it's made up for by the amusement of the anti-frienders. The complainers don't have any more say over whether they end up on some stranger's friends list than webmasters do over whether someone else links to their site. It's just how the system works. If they don't like it, they can ban him.

I'm tempted to friend some of the loudest whiners myself just to tick them off further—but on reflection, I wouldn't want them on my friends page; they probably wouldn't have anything interesting to say anyway.