Refusing a friend request

That's real sweet, and I used to be that way, too....until 20 or 30 people a week started wanting it. Then when you log in....you get 10 IMs all at once, just to say "Hi"....in addition to the other 10 that have a legitimate question or need. Not to mention the conference chats when a customer breaks up with his girlfriend, and wants to relay all the gory details.....and a zillion unsolicited TP's all night long, in a box that covers up purchases that you need to watch.

No more. I couldn't even find my REAL friends on the friends' list anymore - never had a clue they were online, because the list was way too long. I want to see my real friends at the top of the list, without business contacts mixed in. I can be a "friend" to customers without having to have them on speed dial and vice versa. I also don't want them to see me log in at 3am....and ask "why."

LL needs to fix this. Separate tab for business contacts.

If you log off when you get friend requests (especially those sent when you are offline) it wont notify the person that you declined. I tested it with an alt some time ago.

Same here.. and for the ones that do talk but are obviously only offering it to be nice, I tell them it's "friends list", not an acquaintances list.



Lol I've been known to do that to ugly freenis-wearing noobs from time to time.

Or maybe just add a facility to create and manage Contact Groups.

Either way, I normally only reject when it's a random request from someone I've never spoken to. If we've chatted at all, I normally accept and then remove a day or two later if the "friendship" hasn't developed.

I'm not sure being rude is necessary or even advisable, unless you're a bit bored and want to bait someone into an argument. Which I'm on board with!

I'm fine with not asking until you know someone, of course, but I don't understand this "ask first" thing. This thread isn't the first place I've heard it, but it sounds awfully redundant to me. The friend request blue box already includes the "Will you be my friend" question, which I think you can personalize. So what's the point of asking if you can ask?

As the release notes for the new viewer says, declining a friendship offer will no longer send the message "Your friendship offer was declined" for "social reasons" (or something like that - I recall it made me laugh when I read it)

Being a shop owner, this is pretty much the way I do it too. However, because of this, I now have from 30-50 "friends" online at any given time. With such a long list, I had to turn off the notifications of friends going on and offline. It is just too hard to build with that popping up constantly. So now I never know when a true friend comes online. That is the one thing I miss. It would help me if there were individual checkboxes to tell the client which friends I want to be notified about their changing online status.

For you, absolutely nothing. Please, continue on with the way you are doing it.

Seriously. Do not change who you are to fit someone you are not. You will meet people and befriend people who feel the same way as you and you will be better off for it. I am not being sarcastic or derogatory in any way. Asking before sending the invite is a level of formality you are not comfortable with and other people are not comfortable without. Going forward, this difference in courtesies will be a cause of friction so it is better to be true to yourself and let people know up front who you are.

I've seen this approach, but don't really think it helps. If they're the sort I'd decline, then I'd decline even if they ask in advance. If they're the sort I'd accept, I see no reason for additional steps. The only thing asking in advance does is to indicate they have some experience, but the lack of asking doesn't prove they don't.

If it's someone with whom I've just had a half-way successful role-play, the answer is almost certainly yes, but even if it's not, it shouldn't be considered rude to just offer friendship in a such a situation. Likewise for someone with whom I've clearly been having a good conversation, even if it's not role play. I've accepted friendship in such cases, and I've had other accept friendship from me, all with no sense of skipping a step of etiquette.

If it's someone at a place where we're clearly socializing around a common interest - which for me would be a gay club - and we've both been hanging out for a while, perhaps participating lightly in conversation without any serious banter between us, then a direct friendship offer from them is still fine. Many people coming into these places are the shy sort, who shouldn't have barriers in the way of making friends. So I'd be likely to accept it, but if not, it would be for reasons other than offering friendship without first asking. Conversely, if I see someone who seems new and could benefit from a friend, I'll offer friendship; they probably wouldn't have heard of the "ask first" culture anyway.

If it's someone who's brand new, and is just offering friendship right off the bat without trying to first socialize or learn, then it isn't going to matter to me if they ask first, I'm likely to say no - especially with pushy newbie females who don't grok gay. Either way, I'll thank them for asking, but explain that you should really wait till you get to know people before offering friendship.

Similarly, in other places, where there's no commonality, asking for permission first isn't going to change a no to yes.

Successful shop owners should pretty much count on using an alt, for this and many other similar reasons.

I think most of the people on my list have done that. It's polite.

I don't have a humungous friends list like some which works best for me. As I like to enjoy time alone to explore, shop, putter around doing whatever. So I'm usually the one accepting friendship instead of extending. But my viewer lets me know when someone has dropped me as a friend which bugs me. I'd really rather not know lol. I always wonder, if someone is extending friendship I would think they would chat me up more than me chatting to them, at least at first, to get the ball rolling since they took the initial step. To me the person requesting friendship has taken on the responsibility of starting a friendship & I feel its not a responsibility to be taken lightly hence why I don't do it without some thought. But it is a downer to be dropped. Altho you can't keep up with everyone on your friends list all the time or you'd never do anything else in SL. I can't imagine how people with huge lists manage it. I'd have a headache from all that chatting and talking. You know its not the amount of talk and discussion, its the quality for me.

It depends on the situation. If I've spoken at some length with a fellow student at a school I regularly attend and they offer friendship, I definitely accept.

But honestly, more times than not, even people I've spoken with quite a bit first say, "Do you mind if I add you to friends?" It's a point of courtesy, imo, and really appreciated. I say the same when I offer.

I like to keep my friends list to friends as much as possible and school contacts after that. But anyone I need to send an IM to, I can just look up in People search; I don't need to know when they come and go.

Only trouble with that is if I build with an alt, it has the alt's name as the creator. If there's a way to get around that without my main having to build it all over again, I'm all for that. And once someone has name/brand recognition, people *will* notice.

About a year ago, I used a script for a Hope Chest with an opening lid. The script was given in a class with permission from the scripter to use it in builds to sell. I got a note from a potential purchaser saying she noticed that the lid was a different creator than the chest. Horrified (as I had not noticed that...still very new in building) I found the problem (a root prim issue) and easily corrected it.

You're my kind of person

I have made the choice to be online and build as myself rather than as an alt. While I miss the notifications of my friends coming online, I also have some groups I love chatting with.

I do have alts that I use for modeling and banks. I just prefer to be online as myself. I do not want to use an alt for group chat, that would be confusing to me and to the other members of the group.

I too don't accept random friendship requests either. Strangely I also cull my sl friend list on rl anniversay dates, like kids birthdays, anniversaries etc. These significant dates are spaced out during the year and the rl/sl mix seems to work for me and signifies a new start, a moving forward and gently losing folks you haven't spoken to since the last time.

So, after steamy hot sex with a real personal connection, is it OK to Friend without asking?

I sure hope so, because I get friend requests like this, and I'd hate to think my dates were being rude!

While I'm on the subject, is there a sex bias for who should offer? Is the gentleman expected to offer friend after such an encounter, or does the gentleman allow the lady to make it?

It's not about formality. I'm pretty casual, but my primary and our typist are both pretty formal, and none of us have a problem abiding by whatever the local customs are.

I just don't understand the reasoning behind this custom. Why do people think it's polite to ask twice? Where did you learn this custom and what made you think it was the right thing to do? I mean, etiquette in general tends to have a lot of irrational hangups left over from ages past, like shaking hands and men walking on the streetside of women, but SL is still pretty young to have that sort of holdover. And I haven't seen a similar "ask twice" custom in any other online arena. It would make sense to ask in conversation if you could add friends without getting their permission via the client, but since the asking is already built into the software and they must give permission before it happens, then where's the benefit in asking twice? It must have had some sort of benefit or people wouldn't have started doing it in the first place.

What would you think if someone asked "Mind if I smoke" and they already had a lit cigarette in their mouth?

Pep (Presumptuous?)

You could always present yourself in a way where half the grid thinks you're a creep an the other half thinks you're a monster. It would totally prevent unwantd friendship offers and offline IMs. (^_^)y

Immy ( Works for me! =^-^= )

1. After that "steamy hot sex", the issue of coming across as rude by not asking is lessened. However, if sex is already involved and that person is not already on my friends list, my acceptance of that offer kinda depends on the vibes I get from them.. and whether or not that hot steamy interlude was really hot-n-steamy, or if it was meh.

2. I do not offer friendship. Not even if they make me go nutz for them or give me total butterflies. Just old fashioned that way I guess.

I'd think it was totally OK to do *whatever* and then ask about it afterwards.

What you call a "hangup" I call good manners. I still enjoy men walking on the street side, opening doors and pulling out my dining chair for me. Oh, and "ages past." You make it sound like something from the Medieval era. I can assure you I'm not that old.

Ah, youth is wasted on the young.