Vomit Comet Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 How can I set it up so that only people I want to talk to can do so? I've gone several years with nary a peep from the people I left behind, and I don't want Facebook to undo that tranquility. My one friend got Facebook, and his fundie family that he had left on the other side of the country got wind that he was living with and fucking a girl. From then on, not a week went by when they weren't giving him endless shit. He says he wishes he never got into Facebook, it opened up the floodgates whereas before the distance kept them from bugging him. I don't want the same thing to happen to me. I don't want to have to deal with that shit, and I haven't had to. I want to start doing Facebook like all my friends are doing, but I don't want to fuck up my golden situation here. What can I do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vomit Comet Posted September 15, 2009 Author Share Posted September 15, 2009 How can I set it up so that only people I want to talk to can do so? I've gone several years with nary a peep from the people I left behind, and I don't want Facebook to undo that tranquility. My one friend got Facebook, and his fundie family that he had left on the other side of the country got wind that he was living with and fucking a girl. From then on, not a week went by when they weren't giving him endless shit. He says he wishes he never got into Facebook, it opened up the floodgates whereas before the distance kept them from bugging him. I don't want the same thing to happen to me. I don't want to have to deal with that shit, and I haven't had to. I want to start doing Facebook like all my friends are doing, but I don't want to fuck up my golden situation here. What can I do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraphicsGuy Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 Set your privacy so no one can search for and find you. Search for other people that you don't want contact with and block them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HRDWarrior Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 Make sure all your privacy settings are set that only friends can see them. You can set your search privacy as well - I don't worry about that, if there's someone I just don't want to be friends with I just refuse the friend request, then they can't see my page (can't see it until I friend them). Just be sure whenever you upload something that you set the privacy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cudds Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 You can set your security settings so that nobody can add you as a friend until you've added them first and then search for the people who you'd rather not find you and block them so they can't even see you. My sister in law has blocked me because I'm an Atheist and no results come up when I search her name and I can't even see the posts the makes on mutual friends pages... It's like she doesn't exist. Bliss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John09 Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 You have it better than I. The vast majority of my friends on Facebook are christians who don't yet know I have deconverted. I'm still thinking of ways to announce it without resulting chaos. That, however, may be unavoidable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cesium Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 In my case, the people I am concerned about seeing my posts are already friends. Many are from my parents church, and removing them all as friends would be noticed. I have been censoring what I post on Facebook recently. I have not yet told family members about my deconversion, but I plan to do so in the near future. I want to send a letter to family members rather than have them hear a rumor of something I posted on Facebook. Once I have told family, I will start posting more freely. I do not plan on posting that I am now an atheist, but I will do more subtle things such as comment on a Carl Sagan book that I have read. I removed religion from my profile and nobody noticed. In an ideal world, I would have changed it to "none". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvaholic Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 Just a tip - set up an e-mail account JUST for facebook and don't give the address to anybody. I get invitations all the time for facebook at my regular e-mail, but the e-mail I use for facebook I haven't given to anybody. So nobody can be my friend unless it's MY idea. And those requests I get through my regular e-mail are always asking me to join facebook - those people haven't figured out I'm already on facebook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShallowByThyGame Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 One thing you could consider is not using your given name...a nickname or something combined with an unclear picture will help people from identifying you. You could even have a separate facebook account for your family to find which is boring and squeaky clean that you never really check. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Davka Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 Just a tip - set up an e-mail account JUST for facebook and don't give the address to anybody. Ditto. TV got it right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaraOlive Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 When I was a child, all my friends were Christians. I had really good times with them and have good memories about most of them. Even though we went to Christian school together, religion didn't necessarily come into our friendships much. But now they're all clogging up my Facebook. Some of the annoyance is religious, and some is how everyone seems to have 50 million baby pictures, but mostly, it's just that we don't have anything in common anymore. Still, I absolutely hate cutting off that last connection to some of the good things in my childhood. I guess I could make it so none of them show up on my news feed... but then why even keep that last connection? I go back and forth. *** Several months ago, a woman from my parents church asked to friend me and I accepted because she'd been someone I'd liked a lot as a child. I unfriended her because she was becoming obnoxious with constant comments and notes, many being religious. Now she's sent me another friend request with a little note (seems pretty clueless). At first I thought I should write back and explain that as an ex-Christian, I wasn't interested in having my page filled up with religious things... but after thinking about it, I guess I should just ignore her request. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulQ Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 Since this thread is about Facebook; if you want to mess with somebody, if they post something like, "I've had the worst day ever!", click on the "Like this" icon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShallowByThyGame Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 Facebook is interesting because if you aren't willing to put your foot down and make sure your 'friends' are really friends then the site can get frustrating. You have to be self-confident to decide 'I am okay rejecting this person.' Some people have friends they can't even remember...seems pretty pointless to me unless you're trying to be a public figure. I've 'hid' a few people who were annoying, but I didn't necessarily want to defriend. I refused my cousin-in-law because I heard she named her daughter 'Faith' lol. She luckily hasn't brought it up, but if so I will just say 'I don't really know you'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaisedPB Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 Yeah, I made the mistake of accepting a bunch of old christian friends because I thought it would be fun to get back in touch with some friends from childhood. Now it is getting annoying. I've had to hide a couple of them on my newsfeed because they would just post a bible verse in their status every day. How obnoxious. All your friends are christians. What are you trying to prove? Ooooh, you're so spiritual. Good grief. I also tend to somewhat censor what I post because I know some of them would report back to my parents, and I don't need the grief of a phone call or a speech at our next get together. I agree that it's easy to set your privacy so that only friends can see your page and then only accept friendships you want and ignore the rest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulQ Posted September 15, 2009 Share Posted September 15, 2009 All your friends are christians. What are you trying to prove? That their "Herd" is bigger than your "herd." It's all about the herd mentality; we're not so far from the animal kingdom, except the fact that we have wonderful machines, wear fabulous clothes, live in great homes, use much more intricate methods of communications, and know we're going to die. Along with a bunch of other stuff which is great, entirely attributed to our intellect. I digress. They want to be sheep, and sheep love to be surrounded by sheep. That just about sums it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ephymeris Posted September 18, 2009 Share Posted September 18, 2009 As for people I am neutral to (all those old highschool acquaintances) when they send me friend invites I usually accept them and then remove them from my list a few weeks later after they've satisfied their curiosity. Not because I'm hiding from them but because we aren't really friends and I don't want to know them or have them get to know me better. They've never seemed to notice they were dropped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts