I was checking my (Other) box on Facebook, expecting hate mail after a heated exchange about dog breeding on a public page. That's another post for another day.
Anyway, when I saw the telltale numeral warning me of a message, I braced for name-calling, threats, and all of the fun immature things people get bold about behind a keyboard. Instead, it was a message from a pleasant woman whom I had added from a friend request almost a week ago.
I felt sort of silly for not having noticed it that long, especially since I did accept her request. I'm usually thorough enough to catch something like that before hitting the yes, especially when we have no mutuals. I even remember her following my page before that.
Where I'm getting at with this is that I am typically pretty cautious about my Facebook security. Most of my personal page is very specifically limited to certain audiences for my young siblings' safety as well as my own. I'm also not completely unaware of the less than savory people looking to exploit personal information or photos.
With that as my habit, any time I get a request from someone with no mutual connections, I am always immediately suspicious. Where I get hypocritical is that I am always more suspicious if it's coming from a man.
As with my new friend mentioned before, she turned out to be female, and I had expected the request after she had followed me. Regardless of this and the request coinciding with many a feminist rant on my public feeds, I still followed my "procedure" and vetted her page. I always like to be sure it's not some spammer trying to sell something, or a dummy profile made two days ago by some psycho. I don't have a fully developed criteria, and even if I did I wouldn't list all of it here. I have stalkers (believe it or not) and I don't want to enable them. Her page checked out, so I gave her the okay.
I realized today, had this request been from a man with no mutual friends, I wouldn't have even considered it. As a matter of fact, there have been men who follow my feed, have sent a request, and without blinking I have deleted it.
My justification for this is loads of experience with the lovely internet, as well as experiences in the real world and good old intuition. There have been exceptions, which I will detail, but typically the norm is if you're a woman on the internet and a strange man is trying to get close to you it's bad news.
Husband has almost verbatim said, "Unless he's a friend I've met before, I assume any guy approaching you wants the booty." While I'm one to look for the good in people, life has taught me Husband is mostly correct.
The exception to this stranger danger is when I've gotten a message along with the request. While some of those are still, "Tits pls?" and "I jacked off to you," the ones with actual substance have passed muster.
Occasionally I get hit up by military, medical, or educational contacts who have the sense to message me why they sent a request. Even so, both guys and girls with no mutuals usually fall under networking because this is the only other reason I would add them. That means they still won't see most of my personal page, but we can still keep in touch on relevant issues.
All of these standards and justifications aside, I can't help but feel a little hypocritical. Regardless of my reasoning, this standard does in a way make me sexist, and that's not cool. I am constantly preaching equality and that humanity is innately good, but I am immediately guarded when approached by men.
What say you, nice people? Should this change? Am I wrong for my line of thinking?
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