Of friends and friendster

By this morning, within a week after my exams, I've had four new friend requests. Out of these, I only approved one cuz he's the only one I know. The others either had no connection whatsoever (not even third degree) OR are those, you know, just adding people for the sake of making their "friends" network hit hundreds and, if they could, thousands. I don't know why they do that. Maybe to appear popular or likable or glamourous. Not saying that everyone with gazillion friends on their account are definitely like that. Maybe they do sincerely like to make friends. If none of these reasons are it, then they probably have itchy fingers on the mouse, itching to click "add as friend".

But *sigh* if you are likable or popular, you don't have to prove it or show it. Or start a forum thread in your school network account entitled "who know me?!?!" to see how many respond. People would know. It's like a person's character. A person might be able to hide his/her flaws or pretend that he/she is someone else. But after a while, people can see right through you. And they can tell between fake and real deal. They're not that blind. God may have given us physical eyes to see the physical. But He also gave us another set of eyes, i.e. discerning mind and heart, to see right through the physical.

It's kind of a tug-of-war. I used to put sentences that state and imply that I don't simply add people I don't know under the "Who I'd like to meet" column. But then, that would look too cold and unfriendly. Which I admittedly am not comfortable with. When I take that off, strangers come adding. For me, and I think for most of us, we like to keep our network between our friends only. I mean, isn't that what it should be? To keep in touch with friends? For all you know, these strangers adding you could turn out NOT to be the pictures they post or the nice, charming persona they adopt. I hesitate to click "no" to friend requests because that would seem so rude.

Argh. I must learn to say no.