ADD ME! ADD ME!

I am starting to get "Add as friend" requests on Facebook from people I don't know and don't remember.

I find myself going "Huh?" regularly these days.

Is it too much to expect that I have to at least have had a real life conversation consisting of more than "Hi" and "Bye" before I actually consider a person as a friend? Half the time, I don't even remember going through the "Hi" and "Bye" process with some of the people who have added me recently. Hell, in the real world, these people can't even be considered as plain aquaintances.

Being a friend of my friend, does not automatically make you mine, despite what the six-degree theory says. Worse, some of these people may be a friend of another "Huh?" non-friend.

Sometimes, I get the imagery of that man-eating plant from the "Little Shop of Horrors" in my head, only instead of saying "feed me", it's refrain is "Add me, JT, Add me...". Shudder.

But sucker for proper online etiquette that I am, I can't make myself just select ignore. And I hate to send messages back asking these people to remind me exactly how I know them, because it sounds so rude. So I have all these friends requests sitting in my notification area, and not knowing what to do with them. Sometimes, I end up adding out of the desperate need to clear my notification area.

I think Facebook should have another option added for the proper verification of the existence of friendship between the "adder" and the "addee". The "adder" needs to contribute $50 real money to the "addee's" account if the "adding process" is to go through. I am fully prepared to waive the real life "Hi" and "Bye" process for that. If you top that up to $100, I'll even say "Hi" first - virtually of course. Real life "Hi's" cost $200 and up. Real friendship is priceless, for everything else, there's Mastercard.