Facebook Friends: Facebook Gets to Choose Them For You

I doubt very many people have heard of this, but do you know that Facebook gets to decide if you're friends with someone or not?  You might be thinking to yourself, "what?  I pick the people I'm friends with on Facebook."

Well, it's not quite that simple.

Today, while browsing Facebook, I saw someone I knew from a long time ago.  I hit the familiar "Add as Friend" button.  I was immediately given the following screen.

So, wondering why in the world I couldn't add someone I've known for some time, who actually knows five people in common, I clicked on the Help Center link.

Apparently, Facebook gets to decide who your friend are and are not because other people don't have the time to check their friend requests and hit "YES."

I've seen it happen many times.  There was a woman I went to high school with, who either didn't remember me or didn't think I was worthy of being her friend, despite 42 other people from high school being mutual friends.  She would never click yes.  I'd see the "Awaiting Friend Confirmation" on her page for weeks, and a month or two later (after giving up), I'd check again to see that she must have ignored the request at some point, because I could request the connection again.

Or, I've seen people who rarely ever get on Facebook.  There's a guy I'm waiting back on right now, someone I knew as a kid, and he's been "awaiting" for months.  His profile is never updated, so I can only assume he never logs on.  Who knows how long it will be before he responds.

And I've also had people who, for whatever reason, just click no or ignore.  I had one of those a couple weeks ago, but only because he didn't know me by my real name, he only knew me by an online pseudonym.  The second time I sent the request, I had to mention who I was and how he knew me.  My fault, mostly, as I should have done that to begin with.

However, when you add up all these scenarios, and when they happen in a compressed amount of time (a year or less, I'm guessing, because Facebook doesn't really tell you), apparently Facebook naturally assumes you're a horndog clicking on girls' profiles, or someone with a social complex where you click on people you don't know to see if you might actually know them.  In the end, Facebook gets to decide that you can or cannot click on "Add as Friend."

What I don't understand is why Facebook doesn't think that the person receiving the request is smart enough to take a moment to see if they actually know someone.  Or, if the software is set up to see failed or pending friend requests, why can't it compute the fact that mutual friends might mean something?  If I'm clicking on random people in faraway cities, sure, limit me.  If I'm clicking on someone with mutual friends in cities that correspond to most of the people on my friends list, why would you limit me?  I click on more than 100 people in a day, cut me off (please).  If I click on someone once or twice a month, cut me some slack already.

Oh well.  I guess I'll have to wait for Facebook to be my friend again, so I can send requests to others.