I decide to like something based on its content not who posted it. So I don’t mind liking people I am not that close too or having them like my stuff.

If this guy makes you uncomfortable, unfriend him.

@marinelife Right same here. Except there’s not any one particular person I’m not close to that I feel the need to like all the time.

Is it okay for strangers to give you lurve for questions like this?

@filmfann Of course. haha

I once deleted someone for exactly this reason. Not because we didn’t know each other well (we didn’t), but because it was everything. In addition to that, I have kind of an oblique sense of humour, and he would always ask for clarification of the things I posted. Sometimes, the joke is only for people who get it, you know? Since then, I’ve been a lot more careful about who I add. I’d much rather not add someone than have to delete them later.

@glacial Definitely. I’ve been denying a lot more friend requests lately for this reason exactly. As for this guy, I blocked him from seeing my status updates again today to save myself some annoyance.

I feel kind of bad because I want to delete him but he confided in me that he has really low self esteem and issues with any kind of social rejection so I figured that this is the best compromise without being “mean”.

In retrospect, it’s kind of apparent that he had some kind of small crush on me, especially since every time I used to get a modeling campaign he would share it on his wall and tell everyone that he “knew” me.

Like I said, he’s harmless but annoying. x(

@LeavesNoTrace Yeah, my experience was similar – he would occasionally say things like “thank you for being so supportive”, but in a very over-the-top, emotional way… and we barely knew each other. It was just too much. I mean, I hope he’s ok, but it was starting to feel a little like emotional blackmail, and that just isn’t ok with me.

@glacial Ouch. Sounds like a very needy person. With this guy I think he was just thrilled that a young college girl would even talk to him, if only in a platonic way that he still hopes that he can maintain some kind of “connection” to me even though we never talk and live halfway around the world from each other.

It just gets especially creepy when I can predict when he’ll “like” something like clockwork or when he shared a picture and tagged he took of a Times Square billboard of me in vintage lingerie on his wall for all of his and my friends to see. Clearly the billboard was already there for every schmuck in NYC to see but that he was OVER-acknowledging and fawning over it was kind of creepy to me. I almost regret ever doing that gig except that I desperately needed the money and was very excited for it at the time.

I suspect that some people just “Like” everything on sites that allow it, such as FB and IG. I have my FB “Friends” organized based on the onion-layer theory of friendship – by how much I like them or how much I want to share with them. Therefore, on any post, I can choose which ‘layers’ can see what I post. Since creating those lists, FB has developed similar lists “Close Friends” and “Acquaintances”. Perhaps you can put this person in the Acquaintances folder so he only sees what you choose to share with him.

It sounds very stalker-ish to me. If it’s so noticeable that even other people are noticing, I think it’s time to unfriend and block him.

Personally I avoid this kind of situation by keeping everything I post hidden from public view and I only add friends if I know them well and like them.

I don’t have that problem, because I only have a limited number of people that I know in real life, mostly my relatives, and a few out of town friends as friends on my Facebook. I don’t accept friend requests from people that I only know casually. And even then, I use that gear icon every single time I post something. So not everyone is seeing all of my posts.

I know this is part of the deal when you accept people’s friend requests that you don’t know very well, but I have had some weird experiences with this. I have an old co-worker that I wasn’t even that close with – and for some reason, she posts all kinds of crazy comments that make no sense under my pictures. She likes weird things and occasionally tags me in her own posts that I had nothing to do with, and I don’t quite get the joke. I honestly think she may be unbalanced. I keep an eye on it and if it starts to get too bad, I’ll just unfriend her and it’s coming close. Life’s just too short for those kinds of things.

Well, it depends… if someone you consider awkward Likes everything you post, that’s “creepy” one of the most overused words of this century, I swear. If a friend does the same—even to your post about your new bathroom mat or “I’m drinking water!!!!”, that’s okay. Because oversharing isn’t “creepy” at all, is it?

I think probably he doesn’t see from his point of view that he is being a bit too much. I wouldn’t unfriend him, it might hurt him too much. It is a tough one.

I googled a media person’s name yesterday, and all I did was click on the facebook site of the person, that is all I did. Immediately I saw the message that I have been accepted as so and so’s friend
“You have been accepted as a friend”. worded in a more friendly way. How did that happen?

@peridot I don’t think I’m an “over sharer” especially compared to a lot of people I see using social media but thanks.

And yeah, sometimes I am a little creeped out by this guys’s creeping behavior because that’s what it seems like, to the point that other’s have noticed it and asked me what his deal is. Think about it: 43+ year old man constantly prowling a 20-something year old girl’s page when they haven’t spoken in years. Kinda creepy.

I’m thinking about deleting him but I honestly don’t harbor any ill-will and think he’s generally harmless. Just kind of creepy.

Are you an MRA?

Men’s Rights Activist?

Magnetic Resonance Angiograph?

Mutal Recognition Agreement?

Nope, none of the above ;)

As for how I responded, that was toward people who do overshare, in the general sense. I don’t assume that just because you identified as a Millennial, you yourself are that way. There are plenty of people across the generations who do the same. Online attention whoring of any kind is just sort of offensive, is all—that was my point.

@peridot Gotcha.

I definitely feel the same way on that point. I just had a real uuuggggghhhh moment about some girl I went to HS with constantly posting status updates about her pot smoking habit. Like, okay we get it. You like smoking weed. Congratulations.

Now I’m certainly for legalization and have been known to partake from time-to-time but I still believe in a thing called “discretion” as long as it’s not completely legal and employers look down on it. Same thing with drinking, and sex, all acceptable behaviors but certainly not a big part of the public persona I’d like to personally portray.

Another personal favorite of mine is FB wall couple drama where one party posts some thinly veiled stab at their SO and then the SO takes the bait and a very public lover’s spat unfolds.

I don’t even use Facebook anymore because of people like that.

A couple of years ago I added a guy that was a friend of a friend.
He liked everything, commented on everything, he was just kinda creepy.

So one day I dyed my hair a darker shade and posted a pic. He was just all over it. About 5 minutes after I posted it and this guy made his little comments, I got a text from my brother telling me that this guy was freaking him out and I needed to get rid of him. Right around the same time I got a text from a close male friend of mine who said pretty much the same thing.
So while I was debating I checked Facebook and saw that my brother and my friend were both attacking this guy.
Immature, yet funny. I deleted him shortly after that because he was causing problems with my boyfriend.

My boyfriend and I both just quit using it because it was too much drama and not much fun anymore.

No. I’m hilarious.

I was going to like your question, but…

(And yes, that would freak me out too.)

I have a ‘friend’, on facebook and though I’ve never met him, he likes and comments on all of my photos, status’ and within ten minutes of me logging in, he’ll have messaged me. I used to talk to him a bit, before he became slightly creepy, asking me very five minutes if I could go meet him somewhere. I recall talking to him one night, we had been in contact for a little over one month at this point, still yet to meet one another and he confessed to me that he ‘loves’ me. He wrote out an entire paragraph, telling me all how he loves me and wants to meet me. He also said, “When we meet, we should go to the movies and we can hold hand, kiss and cuddle.”
I seriously considered deleting facebook at this point.

@xbluexeyesx – If you don’t want to go so far as to block the creepy dude, you can put him in the ‘Restricted’ group, and then change the permissions to your posts to Do Not Show To “Restricted”. Then he’d only see the posts you choose to display to the “Public”.

@xbluexeyesx I’m trying to figure out why you or anyone else would have a “friend” on Facebook who they’ve never met?

I am super guarded when it comes to online stuff. I only have relatives and a few selected close friends on my Facebook. On Fluther, we are all anonymous, so it’s quite a bit different. But there have been people who have PM’d other Fluther members with creepy stuff, and those members got banned. Why not un-friend the creepy guy, and simply stick to friending people that you actually know in person (well, not just casual acquaintances)? You’ll save yourself a lot of drama and potential danger.

@Kardamom – The way you use FB is the way most older adults use it. However, the “Social Network” concept is based on networking – connecting with people you know and expanding your connections to meet new people with whom you share common interests. Many people under 40 started on MySpace which was better designed for meeting people than FB is, and so they use FB in similar ways. They join groups relating to their interests and they ‘meet’ people that way. If they communicate and find that a real friendship is developing, they might meet in person.

I am in my late 40s, and I have made numerous online friends, dozens of whom I’ve met in person and one to whom I am betrothed. My fiancé and I met on a social site and commented on each others photos and posts and got to know each other as friends online, then via text and phone, then met as friends in person, then decided to become a couple. Neither of us were looking for someone to start a romance with.

Social networks can be a terrific tool for meeting like-minded people whom you might never cross paths with otherwise. The key is knowing how to use the settings in those tools to weed out the creeps and trolls. Compared tommy mobile social networks, Facebook has a sophisticated and highly customizable array of settings so the individual can choose how to filter various people they might meet. The key is taking the hour or two to set it up, and then periodically review them. I find Friends Lists are very beneficial to limiting who has access to a given post or information of mine, as well as what I see in my news feed from people who might post things I don’t care to see.