Let's say that someone tries to "friend" you on Facebook, but you don't really want that person to know all of your business - all of the stuff that you post on FB, that is. What would you do?

I don’t friend them.

Declined the friend request.

Ignore; or, add them, but not let them see what I post. Or, change my settings so they have limited view of my info. But, pretty much if it is important to me they don’t see things I ignore, because it is facebook, and no matter what you think your setting are, they might not be.

Yentas. LMAO!

Friend them and add them to a list that can’t see anything you post. That’s exactly what I do. I also block certain “friends” from showing up on my feed. It gives them the illusion of being your “friend” without them actually having access to what you post.

I ignore a lot of Facebook requests. Not that it matters anyway. I sign on maybe two or three times a year and seldom post anything.

I would probably hire a one armed man to kill their wife and then frame them for the murder thereby removing my need to deal with it at all.

@flip86 – How do you do that? Is it Acquaintances or Restricted or something else?

Update: After accepting the request this morning, I decided that I was too uncomfortable with giving her access to my stuff, so I un-friended her. I suppose that I could have messed around with the security settings, but decided to just go cold turkey. I hope she doesn’t feel too bad.

@answerjill That is what I was going to suggest. I’ve had a half dozen people that are connected to other friends. I friended them and the defriended soon after. People don’t notice what they don’t see.

@answerjill It really is quite easy. Go to your Facebook feed and to the left you should see, Favorites, Friends, Groups, etc. Hover over Friends and click More, it will bring you to your lists. Click create list and then name it and add people to it.

Next, to block the people on that list from seeing your posts, go to the status box and click inside it. Next to the Post button you’ll see a drop down box appear that says Public, click it and then go down and click Custom. A box will pop up. Now, go down to Don’t share this with, type the name of the list you just created and save changes.

I’d just ignore the request.

I decline the request.

Ignore the request. I don’t post personal stuff on there though, or very little of it. FB for me is a tool to keep in touch with people, but it isn’t much else. (for me) I guess it depends on how you look at it, and what it means for you.

I let the request languish and eventually stop seeing it.

Ignore. My boss tried to friend me. Not a chance.

The problem comes if this particular yenta is friends in real life with some of your facebook friends and they mention what you posted on facebook. A casual mention of something funny you wrote or some event you announced on facebook triggers them to check to see if you ever accepted their friend request or if you blocked them. It’s a small chance it will happen, but it can. When my sister and I became estranged she blocked me from posting on her page, but I saw our mustual friends doing it. I knew she had only blocked me from doing it. That was a complicated emotional situation though.

Really the biggest risk of the ignore or unfriend getting found out is if you have a lot of mutual friends on facebook with the person. She will see you posting on other people’s threads.

If I’m not comfortable with someone seeing stuff I put on Facebook I don’t accept their friends request. End of. I don’t really put anything on Facebook that I wouldn’t be happy with everyone in my life knowing so, if I don’t accept a request it’s either because I don’t know the person (ie: they are a random request by someone collecting “friends”) or I don’t like/trust them at all.

I guess the reason you’re posting and they can’t see would matter. I have a pastor or two, priest, rock stars, family, friends and school mates, so what are you posting that would be too weird for this particular friend?

@JLeslie – Glad you thought the yenta thing was funny! Luckily, I only have one mutual “friend” with this person, although it is her daughter, unfortunately. (I am not close with the daughter, but we have known each other since we were babies.)

@KNOWITALL – I don’t post anything that I wouldn’t want people to know. It is hard for me to explain it here, but I would not be comfortable with this person seeing my stuff. I suppose that her daughter could always show it to her, but I really doubt that she would bother.

@answerjill You can ignore it, I’d probably do that.

I’d ignore them, especially if it was someone I didn’t know. I’m pretty selective about who I have as friends, even people I know from real life.

I do know her. In fact, she’s known me since I was a baby!