The Perils of Friending Strangers

Last year, I wrote a short article on my Facebook friending approach — my general rule of thumb is to avoid friending strangers, and to have some substantive exchange with would-be friends before accepting or making a request. But I recently relaxed my rule when some random person friended me because I had assumed I had met and forgotten him. We had many mutual friends. I sent a message to the effect of, “Hey, have we met?” And he referenced having seen a play I was in as a college sophomore. Fair enough. Substantive connection. Today, however, I found that he had insulted one of my good friends on my Facebook wall. Classy move. I deleted and defriended in that order. This is all pretty juvenile, I realize, but I was mildly enraged by this, as the friend in question is an unusually cool dude.