How do you have 743 friends at age 16?

[Ethros]

Yes I use Facebook. Sue me

Anyway, two of my female "friends" on it seem to be super obsessed with collecting as many friends as possible. One is 21 years old, and currently has 1040 friends, which I find mind boggling as it is (granted she is a Paris Hilton wannabe slapper)

And the other is only 16, and currently has 743 friends.

Basically how the fuck does that happen?
I'm 24; I don't think I've even met 743 people in my life, never mind being friends with them, and that they're on Facebook

Obviously there's a lot of bullshit going on; adding people you're not really friends with and only ever met once sort of thing, friends of friends for example.
But still, 743?!

As I say I'm 24, I have just over 100 friends. Most of them are people I went to school with and haven't seen for years, a few ex co-workers, current work colleagues, a few friends of friends, and then actual friends. Granted I didn't go to University where I guess you meet a lot of people.

But this girl is still in school for god's sake. It's just odd, and also sad how desperate people are for attention and affection

 

[RoJoHen]

I dunno. I got bored one day in high school and went through my yearbook to see exactly how many people I knew, and it was in the upper 500s (there were 800 in my class, 3000 in my whole high school).

Throw college in there, and I could easily see myself at 700-800 if I tried hard enough.

Now, "Facebook friends" are not remotely close to real friends. Real friends...I have about 10.

 

[Ethros]

There are plenty of people I went to school with in my year who I "know", in the sense of I recognise and know their name, but we never spoke or interracted at school ever. Therefore I don't add them, it just feels wrong. They show up a lot in the "people you may know" bar thing for example.
I only add people from my school days who I would at least talk to now & again. Then again I was pretty shy in those days, still...

 

[Lord Garth]

Just count every acquaintence of yours and anyone you've only seen online as a "friend" and you can have 743 of them.

Otherwise, how can anyone at any age have 743 friends?

 

[RoJoHen]

Eh, I talked to everybody in high school. I was the nerd that jocks loved because I helped them with their math. There were very few people I didn't get along with, so I was at least acquainted with most of them.

 

[Emher]

Yeah I'm apparantly an odd facebooker since I only friend people I actually have met and are somehwat friends with.

 

[Lindley]

My friend count is still 2 digits. Imagine that.

 

[nx1701g]

I don't use facebook but my AIM has 1,741 people on it.

 

[Cali]

I have just over 200 people on Facebook - broken down into school acquaintances, Uni friends and then fandom friends.

Interestingly, I don't have my best real life friend added on there because I actually call and text him. Don't need to communicate via Facebook with him.

 

[Markas]

It's like those myspace people that you meet out at a bar who give you a card with their page and ask to be friended. That's how.

 

[jamestyler]

It's like those myspace people that you meet out at a bar who give you a card with their page and ask to be friended. That's how.

The worst chat up line I've ever heard was "If I add you to Bebo, will you accept?" I laughed. A lot.

I've got over 500 on MySpace which are mostly guys I've worked with in various places, their curious girlfriends or fans. Plus about 50 bands who I let add me for work stuff. Facebook is a far more private place and I couldn't imagine having close to 100, let alone over 700

When I was 16 I don't think I knew more than 50 people, most of those I couldn't tell you their names. But I guess you can look popular by adding everyone you see.

 

[The Borg Queen]

I never bother with places like Bebo or Facebook as I'd only add someone as a friend if I know them socially. It's also why I don't bother accepting friends requests on here either, since I don't actually know anyone on here personally.

 

[RoJoHen]

Facebook is a completely different animal from what it was when it started. Back then (granted, this was only about 6 years ago) it was really only meant to be a network for college students who went to the same school, so there was a lot less random friending going on.

 

[Kemaiku]

My friend count is still 2 digits. Imagine that.

Same here.

 

[Danoz]

They are random friends or acquaintances of friends. I run a group called "I love Siberian Huskies" that has over 2000 members, and if I send out a message to the entire group I inevitably get dozens of friends requests from people I've never met. Some people, I think, consider the community more like a "MySpace" kind of deal than just a place for people who know each other to keep up. I don't generally accept friends I don't know in person... though actually I did accept a few people on TrekBBS I've never met in person.

I have 558 "friends." I know who most of them are, but a lot of them are people I went to high school/college and I remember their faces. My fiancee has over 1000 friends, but she's an actress and social butterfly and just seems to get a lot of "friend requests" from people she briefly meets.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Eh, I talked to everybody in high school. I was the nerd that jocks loved because I helped them with their math.

Heh. I was the nerd that jocks liked because I was the wise ass who was always getting in trouble for my acerbic wit.

As for friends on Facebook and so forth; I think I've got a couple of dozen. Between schools and jobs and real life, I've been "friendly" with thousands of people over the years, but there's only a very tiny number that I count as genuine friends.

 

[Ruaidhri]

I actually removed a people from my friends list on Facebook the other day. They were people who were basically friends of friends and just added me for their collections. I had accepted them within the first few weeks of registering, because it was still new to me. But eventually, you get tired of seeing updates that Maurice in the Phillippines has become a "fan" of nonsense like Popcorn, Velcro and the Bangles in the space of ten minutes, and No, I don't want to join your little Mafia game.

I currently have 63 friends on Facebook.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I have 428 friends on facebook. No, these aren't all people I'm great friends with and see every day (if I saw them every day, why would I need facebook?). The vast majority are real life acquaintances that I talked to for a long time. There's a couple of exceptions. There's a few people from this board who friended me (where I guess our conversations were more generalized and directed at everyone) and there are some people who friended me and I don't really know them (usually high schoolers). In both cases, I didn't friend them, they friended me.

I think 743 might be a bit high for a high schooler (it would depend a lot on the high school), but it's not impossible.

 

[MIB]

How do you have 743 friends at age 16? Answer: You don't. The kid probably just accepted every friend request spurred by every one-time meet-up he's ever had in the past year or so. If he actually speaks to even a tenth of the friends he has, I'd be surprised.

Aside from that there is also the rather sad idea floating about that having hundreds, if not thousands of friends on your blog somehow makes you more relevent, cool, etc. I guess that is because it makes you look like you're far more popular than you actually are. Now I'm not saying that is the case with everyone, but there are those that "collect" friends because of that line of logic.

 

[Ethros]

^ It's a she btw

The worst chat up line I've ever heard was "If I add you to Bebo, will you accept?" I laughed. A lot.

I've never used it, but I always thought Bebo was mainly for kids, ie under 16s