Interet Dating Dilemma - He wants to be my Facebook friend before we've even met

There's a guy on a dating website who has my email address, but chose to look me up on Facebook (which I don't really mind) Now he's sent me a friend request from f/b with his message. Now, I'm pretty picky about who I choose to 'friend' on Facebook anyways, but I don't know him, he's not my 'friend' yet and perhaps never will be and I don't want him to see all my silly pix and posts, but y'know I am interested a little bit. What's the best way of saying 'look buddy, I want to pursue this, but can we leave Facebook out of it' without seem rude, aloof or as if I've got something to hide? Answers on a postcard, sorry, post, please.

Is it too cliché to say just be honest?

I'm sure if you tell him you'd like to go out, but you don't feel ready to add him to facebook yet he would understand.

if that fails, have sex with him and then change yr email address

"I don't Facebook until at least date three buddy, back off a little."

you should mind him looking you up and should rethink wanting to pursue this. imo.

(goole OTM, ignore my flippancy)

Like she hasn't googled him prior to the date, come on.

I'd just say something like, "Hey, no offense, but I'm only Facebook friends with people I've met IRL" -- make it seem like it's not him, it's just this silly policy you have.

the facebook stalk is normal protocol but friend request is not cool. (also dude is putting himself into the friend-zone right off which is a poor play on his part.)

xp (I don't actually think it's "silly" at all, but you could present it to him like this if you're worried that he'd be offended.)

usually that happens because he doesn't want to pay for the dating site but wants to talk to you

you should mind him looking you up and should rethink wanting to pursue this. imo.

― goole, Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:04 AM

that's ridiculous. but yeah, it shouldn't be that hard to say 'i don't want to be facebook friends with someone i don't know yet, sorry.'

if he has the email address, HE CAN SEND AN EMAIL

ha i hadn't considered that. that seems lame too tho.

xp2cutty

ha, good point! he just wants to scrutize your photos from every angle.

xp2dan

everybody looks everybody up but basically telegraphing "hi i looked you up!" is really over the line.

^OTM

give him the link to this thread and we can all discuss it together

I appreciate that kind of honesty in stalkers.

From that "random thoughts" list that's been forwarded/posted a lot recently:

When I meet a new girl, I’m terrified of mentioning something she hasn’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

"Hey baby I was just stalking you. What's your twitter account name btw?"

you can select what he sees, no? i mean, shit, you can make it so he only sees what you're a fan of/friends with/... and that's it.

give him the link to this thread and we can all discuss it together

― cutty, Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:16 AM (1 hour ago)

you should mind him looking you up and should rethink wanting to pursue this. imo.

You are being ironic, no?

nope

yeah seems kind of weird

is this really weird? some people just kind of friend pretty freely it seems. in any event if you decline to friend him for the reasons you stated and continue the conversation in e-mail or whatever, should clear up pretty quickly what his deal is.

just delete him if it goes tits up

i think it's weird. just poor etiquette at least. if he can't understand why you won't friend him or gets butthurt about it then you know he is probably a serial killer

agree w/ call all destroyer.

also you can accept him and set your privacy levels as high as you like

This whole dilemma just screams "socially incompetent" to me. (From his POV - I know you're perfectly socially competent, Prawn)

Looking someone up is fairly common but announcing it by sending a friend request before you've even met is a bit HI I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FUNCTION IN BASIC SOCIAL SETTINGS.

Unless he's never actually been on the internet before or something.

Would exercise extreme caution with this one.

just ignore his request until you know whether you want accept or refuse duh

I took the screen name of a chick I wanted to pursue on OkCupid - a girl that made an account but for some reason never logged back in - I took her screen name and added it to my AOL buddies list. I saw that she logged in one night and I sent her a few messages about how I got her name from OkCupid and she should check her mail.. see if she wouldn't mind talking to me sometime. She didn't reply but It was late at night and I also wrote later at the end of the IMs I sent her.. I wasn't up for talking and I logged off of AIM in the next 5 minutes. Anyways I now don't know if she ever got that message or if she got it and ignored it. Yesterday I saw her logged in again and the second I sent her a message: "did you get my odd message about oksupid last night?", she logged immediately out. It said the message would send to her next time she logs back in.

Now I don't know whether I should ever IM her again. I already "stalked" her enough but I don't know if she ever got any of my messages to begin with. It's complicated being the person who has the other person's web address and tries to look them up somewhere else.

oh i think she got the message

she logged immediately out.

interesting way to put it

you should email her to see if she got the message

fyi bro when some1 blocks you, it says they're "logged out"

Now I don't know whether I should ever IM her again.

yes you do too know you fucking weirdo!!

xps wow that got the gallery awake

you should watch that swingers film captainlorax

Ha!

All my friends are like "get AIM, get Facebook..." but reading this thread just realise that these things open a whole world of social cans of worms I just don't want to have to deal with.

she is just not that into you. she has not exactly been giving you mixed signals either.

if i'd hit it off really well with a girl online and sent a fb friend request and she didn't add me up i'd just assume she had a boyfriend or she was hiding something terrible tbh.

really well = gonna meet up irl sometime soon.

This whole dilemma just screams "socially incompetent" to me. (From his POV - I know you're perfectly socially competent, Prawn)

Looking someone up is fairly common but announcing it by sending a friend request before you've even met is a bit HI I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FUNCTION IN BASIC SOCIAL SETTINGS.

this is sorta overblown. facebook etiquette can really vary - some people add everyone. sometimes these people are not nec socially incompetent, they just take a different approach towards the site.

oh, Captain Lorax

if i'd hit it off really well with a girl online i would try really hard not to fuck it up by blasting her on every communication channel available to me

xxxp I would never make that assumption -- some people are just selective with who they befriend on Facebook.

you all already know the AIM protocol
'fyi bro when some1 blocks you, it says they're "logged out"'
I never heard that before.
I thought she just logged out quickly.
You all could be a little less mean when I am talking about something seriously. Way to go in for the kill there.

Almost every woman I know is incredibly selective about who they will friend on FB. It's just part of "being careful" or something.

if a girl is on OKC...

Oklahoma City girls are especially prone to be snapped up, I presume.

xp - I was being somewhat facetious, actually most of friends' posts are links or youtube clips or quiz results ... but yes, photos of children, pets, spouse, travel ... as well as the daily harvest from one's garden, job accomplishments, etc.

xpost YES all my Oklahomies know.

How would one do that, Sarahel? Do you show photos of your house and dog and beautiful husband and all that? Brag about you job? Is Facebook for assholes only?

I've seen young women getting ready to go out on the town and before they go out one of them will say "bring the camera. tonight is a night for taking photos for facebook." so...

Photobloggers are scum. Sorry if any of you are photobloggers.

fb isn't all this subtle status competition ... one of my hs friends posted the best babby picture -- the kid was dressed in a homemade chicken costume.

I was just saying photobloggers. It was associative.

xp
Facebook's design can encourage the worst behavior from people who already were self-conscious about their social life (Friend counters, notes about yourself, photo-sharing, job and school resume etc etc)

FB to me doesnt count in overall online interaction because its the one place even "non computer" people tend to go, often they wont go anywhere else or even have PCs at home (they'll FB from work).

And the idea women dont do online comms (implication: lol girls cant use computers) is so offensive to me I want to shove an unshielded cable up someones ass.

Yeah I don't think it's really too different.

facebook is for storing photos, joining common-interest groups and keeping in touch w/ ppl - that is why i approve of facebook

you're quite fond of photos, aren't you? ;

Yeah photos is one of the only things I use it for. I'm unhappy at the idea many of my peeps now use it as their event organiser (and they wont email or phone to invite anyone), but whatEVER.

it is also a subtle experiment in social engineering and hivemind which requires alertness to fend off - that is why i disapprove of facebook, although this aspect of it is played up somewhat

yeah sarahel i might be a 'photoblogger' :-/ but i think i'm safe for now

i might be a 'photoblogger'

that was not what i was thinking of ...

a narcissist? imo it shd be done as much for lolz as for vanity

I was referring to a few of your past "glories" documented on ilx ...

thanks in advance for locking this thread, mod

anyway ... the homemade chicken costume was pretty awesome.

If you have one of those columnar photoblogs hosted on tumlr or blogger or whatever, then you're over the edge, Country Matters. Otherwise I think you're in the clear.

i've just never been into taking pictures of myself, friends, etc. I don't see being into it as a personality flaw ... I'm just conscious of the powers of the internet to propagate things and the abilities of photoshop, primarily.

Hm. I guess. I have at times been very open on the Internet and have always proved impervious. It's like some 1p3 thread, and it's obvious from the stats that only 3 people in the entire world have read it. I mean, I've posted my address in the middle of London online and a dozen lampposts and gotten no strangers to show up at my house. Stuff like that.

I made peace with photoblogging until I went to some crummy indie dance night that was really just house music playing, and this guy was going around with an expensive camera documenting the modes of dress and faces and dances, and I got really annoyed and saw into a new side of the activity.

i just don't like looking at photos of people that much ...

Then there's the art-student photographer who tries to inject poignancy to their skinny dipping or ice cream date or whatever. They're okay, I guess.

did they start by taking pictures in cemeteries?

i've just never been into taking pictures of myself, friends, etc. I don't see being into it as a personality flaw ... I'm just conscious of the powers of the internet to propagate things and the abilities of photoshop, primarily.

http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs204.snc1/7133_639311667500_36910239_40959431_1047921_n.jpg

Naw, not goth, just, like, "I'm in art school and I have a lot of really attractive friends, here are my photos with oblique framing and heavy grain and shit."

xpost lol

xp - congratu-fucking-lations!

XD <3

that was at a Lightning Bolt show ... can we call a truce before I compose 5 pages of your flaws and post them to ilx?

username search: haberdager, first 10 posts (more)

also yeah totally truce but nuff with the 'former glories' k :D

it's a deal.

TAKE IT TO AIM

j/k

this thread is like Towering Inferno or one of those disaster movies ...

I just want you all to know that some of you went out of the way to tell me that I'm a "fucking weirdo!!" or "creepy fuck" (goole and call all destroyer)...

please enjoy your well deserved suggest banns.
in the future try not to be such intolerant ass-jacks out to fuck people up

just glad to know i'm on the board tbh

btw the closest i came to actually "insulting" you was sayin that you fucked up on the internet but you already knew that huh

i never called you a creep or weirdo--def not my style

thx man, i'll think about it. i didn't really go out of my way tho.

lorax persrvere man, lots of us out here support u

oh yeah ― Alex in SF is the one who said "creepy fuck", you said don't fucking IM ppl... I probably didn't sb you just alex

captain save a captain

so you are ok call all destroyer.. lol. One less SB to worry about for now

sorry, I got you confused with alex when I was just looking back in this thread

Can I just say in fairness capn that what you said you did, it did come across as something that (from a woman's POV anyway) is kind of inappropriate. You sent a series of unsolicited messages to a complete stranger. I'd have blocked you too, out of "wtf". Its nothing to get angry over, but it wasnt the smartest thing to do.

I only got angry at the people calling me "fucking" ____

but I'm sure that if some girl got some unsolicited message that she didn't care about it wouldn't freak her out; she would just block me or something. I mean I don't think she put any thought into who she blocks or what not.

the other case would be that she didn't block me. she may have went back and read my okcupid message.
but she hasn't logged back into okcupid for over a couple weeks (one thing you can tell by okcupid)... so whatever I quit on her. I wasn't going to email her more than twice. I really didn't do anything very creepy. I just tried to see if she was alive basically.

ok let's stop