the new manners

now that so much of our keeping in touch is done via facebook...there is a whole new set of etiquette to learn. and maybe people have different thoughts on what is poor etiquette but here are my thoughts:

making a friend request: don't request someone you wouldn't want to talk to if you saw them walking in the grocery store. because if you're friends on fb and then you run into them, make eye contact, then both walk the opposite directions - it's awkward.

deciding on whether to accept a friend request: if you don't know the person, just deny the request. if it's a friend of a friend and you'd feel badly saying no, accept. then if within a week, they have not made wall contact, delete them.

responding to event invites: someone invites you to an event. you check out the page and you make the decision: yes, no, maybe. the polite thing to do is to choose one of these options as soon as you see the invite. don't be a "not yet replied" kind of person. it's poor form. people are less offended by an immediate no than a not yet replied.

choosing maybe: maybe is really the perfect response to any event. sure, maybe i will go. and if you think that yes, maybe you WILL go, then by all means, choose it. but if you know that you will not go but don't want to hurt that person's feelings - don't choose maybe. coward.

status updates: the question here is, "what are you using facebook for?". is it to keep in touch with friends? by all means, update your status as often as you want. is it to creep on what people from highschool/college are doing but not comment on their walls? you probably shouldn't post too many revealing statuses about your life. is it a networking tool with which you keep in touch with business associates and work colleagues? you may want to re-think your constant status posting about what you ate for lunch and how you're skipping out on work to get a pedicure. the problem arises when you're using fb as all three. if this is the case, i'd go with the latter. better to be safe than sorry.

oh i know what you're thinking - "who is rebecca to think she's the facebook etiquette master?" don't get me wrong - i most definitely do not think this. but it's been quite a funny week on fb for me, so i thought i'd put a few thoughts out there. however, you may be sick of me inviting you to open houses and think that's poor etiquette. or maybe you can't figure out why i never reply to your messages and think that's poor etiquette. i'd like to make a public apology for my personal fb blunders and also, i should let you know that if we're still friends on fb - i wouldn't mind running into you at the grocery store... :) do you have etiquette pointers of your own? add them here.