Facebook is a trip

I have a love/hate relationship with the social networking site that is Facebook. I have a policy not to spend much time on there and, because of that, I become the creep that merely logs on to stalk random people from my past. Occasionally I'll try to be better at keeping in touch and respond to status updates that pique my attention. But mostly I'll log on to check a message, respond to a friend request or make a snarky comment about my brother's status updates (recent: "hangin' out at amelias house... if (Peanut) weren't here i probably wouldn't be either.")

But sometimes the whole "Request a random friend from your past" thing REALLY weirds me out. It should make me feel flattered to have someone requesting my internet friendship, but it all depends on the "friend" sending such a request. Examples of random people from my past who have tracked me down, friend requested me and I become really bugged about it:

- A girl who, in the 5th grade, was handed my spelling test to grade in one of those teacher-is-lazy-so-makes-students-grade-each-others-tests-deal and ERASED all my correct spelling words and wrote in the wrong words. We were really never friends after that.

- A girl who publicly bashed me on her blog, later friend requested me, I figured "Water under the bridge" and accepted it, only that she blocked me from viewing anything on her page.

- A guy who regularly made fun of me and my buddies throughout middle school and high school. (And then when he transfered to my college, all of a sudden wanted to hang out and have me meet his friends.)

- An old high school crush who friended me, and then when I saw him in Glendora roughly a month later, did everything in his power to avoid me.

Or maybe this is just proof that there are things I clearly need to get over? Either/or, some basic rules for friend requesting need to be established.

When you should NOT friend request someone.

If this is someone who you:

a. ...generally didn't like or get along with.
b. ...made fun of consistently in their youth.
c. ...would never want to talk to outside of the safety of your computer screen.
d. ...passive aggressively bashed behind their back (which I guess I'm doing to all of these people now, but hey, I'm not requesting their friendship).
e. ...would never give access to your whole Facebook profile.

Of course, because Facebook is a casual stalking addiction, I would not delete these people off my friend list because there are moments when I want to stalk them and look for any evidence that my life is better than theirs.

What a sick cycle Facebook breeds.