Online friendships

You will probably be inundated with requests now!

Personally I pretty much accept all requests. I think some people may be 'collecting; friends, but if someone is willing to reach out I am willing to 'listen' to them.

So, far, nothing of a close nature has developed and I tend to respond to respond rather than initiate conversation.

Araminta.

Hello MJ,

Pleased to meet you.

I'd suggest that you got lucky. Two solid sounding friend requests from girls that have an established presence.

The other ones, if they don't understand that you would prefer to get to know them before accepting friend status, it's not your problem. It's for them to sort out, not you.

Marti x

Mary Jane...

You and me both! I’m sure it’s a hangover from the evil empire of Facebook! It’s a different sort of thing from the message lamp on one’s old fax machine... no blinking light = no friends!

I’d far rather answer a PM rather than reject a request but sometimes I just click accept so as not to offend.

Though... in saying that, there are folk out there with whom I have had good, productive conversations with and have grown to like them!

Polly xxx

Unless the people making requests are obviously not who or what they claim to be, I accept all friend requests.  (It's easy enough to cancel friendships if problems arise.)  When it comes to making requests myself, I generally limit them to people with whom I have something in common.

Mixed bag for me. Good news: CDH has led to some lovely on line and in one case personal friendships. (Refer Dani's Debut under my "article" heading).

Not so good news. I define the word "friend" as someone whom I share mutual interests and respect... Now given I'm "way down south" in Australia and CDH by nature and definition is largely "up north", if I receive a "friend request", the first thing I do is check the profile of the initiator. Thus geography is an important part of it all.

Plus, unless there's a good dollop of profile and at least one photo, reflecting the above parameters, I'm highly unlikely to accept the request.

So I just let it sit there...

I fail to see how anyone on the planet can accumulate 40-50 "friends".... But that's how many I've ended up with and I would only regularly be in contact with about 10% of those..

Thus with the exception of the above, its all a bit shallow...

Caty.

I try to be open minded about friend requests.  I've gotten a few requests from girls that didn't have much activity and their profile page was empty.  But it was apparent they were struggling.  I'll always accept those.  For most requests, I like to see something on their profile page or activity.  If there's nothing, I'll sit on the request and see what happens.  If there's still nothing after a few days I usually decline the request.  For requests that I accept, I always send a short message to the sender.

As far as I am concerned, all my sisters are already friends. A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet.

Obviously, it pays to be wary.

An online friend is someone I'll chat with - usually in the forums. I don't use the chat, but I do reply to all PMs and comments... eventually 😍😍😍

I'm very, very selective about who I choose to meet up with as an offline friend - I don't do "hook ups", and I'm not an escort - but I definitely do shopping, meals and evenings out.

Love Laura

It's a very interesting topic, Mary Jane, there's a lot of nuance to the world of online friendships, whether here or elsewhere.
Generally, I react to friendship requests based on the feeling I get from them at the time, which can be based on their profile, what they've said in posts and also down to how I'm feeling at the time!  I have had one or two requests from people who clearly were looking for something more than this site is for, one was accepted but very quickly cancelled.  I do tend to view a request from someone with no content in their profile with a degree of suspicion especially if the request is made the day they join.

I have made some great friendships here - some I chat with very regularly, some more sporadically.  Just like in 'real' life.  The overall friendliness is one of the reasons I love this site so much.  It is a safe environment to be in and the structure of it works well. Yes, there is the odd squabble or disagreement, but that's what friends and family do!

Isabel x

I like to see a reasonably complete profile. I definitely want to see some indication of age.

Lee Ann

Instinct plays a huge part in acceptance... sometimes you do get a bad vibe.

I have a couple of friends here on CDH, but I've only had requests every so often, never so many at one time.

I always check out the requestors wall, and all of the ones I've accepted have stuff on their wall, and they have also logged in recently too.

On another forum I go to, I've known a few of the people on there for at least 10 years, so even though we have never seen one another in person, we have gotten to know each other well thru our posts.

Hi Mary Jane,

If they've never been active here they are probably trolls, and I would reject the requests.

Just my honest opinion.

There was a similar forum on this in the life as it goes section(something like fake profiles)a week or two ago . It was about accepting Freind requests and how to avoid trolls. There was a lot of good advise in it as well as here. I can remember when I joined I was intimidated to say anything in the forums and was looking for friends. The silly thing I did was I sent out blind requests to anyone listed in my geographic area. I didn’t even look at there profiles or their activity. I was lucky in hind sight because most are cool people who I’ve chatted with but some haven’t even logged in for over a month. I think it would be rude to cancel the friendships of those inactive members, so there they sit. Like Emily said some of those newer members are struggling and could use a little help. I can definitely identify with those new members with a blank page. No friends and maybe a little intimidated to post there thoughts in the forums because I was there too. At the end of the day it’s blurry line between new members looking for support and a troll.

I alway check the profile of requests, and I send requests as well, but I look at the persons profile to whom I have sent a request. 🌺🧚‍♀️
Something that disheartens me is the amount of girls who live this life, that are into it for, well, ulterior motives if you know what I mean ( not necessarily on CDH, although I have had some requests that turn into that nature here, but Facebook for sure). I guess I’m naive, I know that side of this type of life exists, and I think that is part of what gives girls like us a bad name. 😢
I just wish it wasn’t like that or that people didn’t expect that of us.

🧚🏼🎀