Dear Abby: Fending off Facebook request

[vass]

Dear Abby: My sister-in-law is demanding to know why I won’t accept her friend request on Facebook. Personally, I don’t consider her a friend and prefer not to allow her access to my Facebook page. How can I politely and honestly answer her questioning?

—Prefer to Decline

Dear Decline: Be forthright and answer her question by telling her that while she may be your sister-in-law, you do not feel personally close enough to her to be comfortable having her review your activities on a daily basis.

Comments

[dorothean]

"you do not feel personally close enough to her to be comfortable having her review your activities on a daily basis"

That sounds like Abby is one of those people who doesn't get why someone would ever want to use Facebook at all... which makes me think she's not awfully qualified to give advice in this situation!

I think people who are selective about who they friend on Facebook usually have their own criteria about it that's more specific than "I don't consider her/him a friend." If I were Abby, I'd ask what Prefer to Decline's criteria really are. Does s/he use Facebook to keep in touch with schoolmates, or for discussion of politics or pop culture, or to play games? Maybe s/he can say to the sister-in-law, "Sorry, I use my Facebook page for professional networking only, so I don't make any posts about my family, and since the majority of people who see my feed are clients and colleagues, it's not appropriate for me to communicate with family members that way."

Or just, "Facebook isn't very important to me, so I don't use it very often."

[jumpuphigh]

Yeah. That answer isn't going to create family drama. /sarcasm

[the_shoshanna]

All true, but the problem with giving any actual reason is that it can be argued with. ("If you don't use it much and it isn't that important to you, what's the problem with friending me?") Miss Manners' advice when refusing any request from someone who will nag, whine, or otherwise persist is just to keep repeating "Because I'm afraid I simply can't," which I think is usually very wise.

(Plus, the letter-writer should think about how much of what happens on her FB may get reported to her sister-in-law anyway. I mean, if she's friended her sibling who is presumably married to the sister-in-law, not friending the sister-in-law is pretty useless. And it sounds as though she does use her FB page for communicating with friends, and the s-i-l knows it. Which doesn't mean she should give up and friend her, but she needs to bear it in mind for her own protection.)

I think my advice would be to adapt Miss Manners' advice and keep repeating, "It just doesn't feel right to me." The answer to "why not?" is "It just doesn't" and a change of subject.

[redbird]

The underlying problem is that the question is a case of "How do I politely say 'no' to someone who is already being pushy?" If the sister-in-law wasn't being pushy, this wouldn't have come up; she'd have asked, letter writer would have ignored it, at most it would have gone to "did you get my request?" "Yes, but I'm not adding people right now." "Oh. How was your weekend?"

And Dear Abby completely ignores that in her answer.

[minoanmiss]

*snickers in agreement*