I’ve got a (not uncommon) bone to pick with Facebook‘s People You May Know. When you first join Facebook this little tool can be helpful – by connecting the dots between your friends and their friends, you can quickly assemble your friends list, take a stroll down memory lane and get connected. I get it. It’s useful. But after awhile the People You May Know list starts look more like, the “ex boyfriends you’d rather not be reminded still exist” list or the “these people used to be your friends but aren’t now” list.

I knew a lot of people in college (and others in high school). I do not want to continue my friendship with all of them (especially the ex boyfriends or the “took his side after the break up” old friends). And if I’ve already said, “Nope – no thanks” by checking the little x next to their picture, why show them again a day, hour or week later? Are they trying to cause me unnecessary grief? Don’t get me wrong, it’s not really that big of a deal – but it still seems silly. Why does Facebook assume we want to friend every person we’ve ever met or our friends have met or went to our school within a ten year radius of us. I guess for some people, this is useful or relevant information, but really. Enough is enough.

I think Reintroduction at Dear Old Love still says it best with:

Facebook keeps putting you in the list of People I May Know. Facebook has only slightly more tact than the guy who introduced us at a party and then said, “Oh, wait. Never mind. You guys totally did it.”

I may know you, but I don’t have to like it.