Facebook, what was I thinking?

So another classmate from high school has sent me a friend request. I know, it's my fault: I signed up and friended 1 person from my graduating class. Even though I have no networks listed, it put me in orbit of her other friends from high school. Sigh.

The first high school friend request I got was fairly easy to ignore. She was pretty much a compulsive liar all through high school and never let me sit shotgun in our mutual friend's two-door Prelude even though I was much taller than she was. Perhaps she's changed but the conservative and religious views on her FB profile did not trip any kindred spirit bells.

This time it's not someone I knew much at all. He was nice enough. I'd friend him but I fear if I did I'd be opening more doors to a past I've long moved on from. He does have our high school listed as a network. For kicks, I looked at who else came up and was surprised by the number of people who made me think: who the hell is that?

My graduating class was, after all, only 51 people. But then I remembered there were some new kids and exchange students during high school and by then, if they weren't in honors classes I wasn't likely to see them much.

The other surprise: some of the best looking people back then, really not so much now. I admit my vanity felt a boost. Two notable exceptions: two people who I thought were genuine then have changed very little and still look great today.

Ooh, the 3rd surprise was a student who was only there for a year or two during middle school. I turned down an offer to hang out with her and never got another. I still remember that phone call. I didn't want to go out of racism whose origin I still do not comprehend. SH was Korean, but she'd been adopted as a baby and grew up in the States. My parents couldn't have cared less about racial differences. I don't remember my friends and classmates saying anything that would've swayed me, but we did live in a small, almost completely white town. Despite being new, often a curse at our tiny school, SH went on to be popular in the short time she was around; I was more alone than I'd ever been. It wasn't direct cause and effect, but it felt karmic.

I never did apologize as it would have meant admitting I was being racist. To be clear, I wasn't walking around saying or even thinking derogatory things about people based on their race/ethnicities; I've always been naturally P.C. in that regard. I can only guess my action came from a fear of the unfamiliar coupled with growing social ineptitude. It's a thing I look back on with regret. I never expected we'd cross paths again. Though I like to set things right when I can, apologizing now might do more harm than good depending on how she recalls that phone call, if at all. Even if she had assumed I was racist back then, she was over it back then, bubbly and friendly to all (myself included at school) and surrounded by better people than I.

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So... what to do about friend requests from old acquaintances on Facebook? I can glut my account with people I don't know well or try to keep it lean so I don't have to filter so much. Yes, I'm feeling some irony hovering in the background. I am not a social beast, least not FB-style social. How do you approach friend requests?


A year ago on TTaT: Trick-or-Treating, at the mall?