Dear "Friend",

I received your recent Facebook friend request. Due to my own very strict policy of "only people I am friends with in real life", I must regretfully decline.

I’m sure you're a very nice person, but unfortunately I wouldn't know because I have never met you. We don’t have that shared history of togetherness implied in the title "friend".

Furthermore, it is very unlikely that you would really want to be bombarded on a nearly-daily basis with my controversial views, activist links, mundane teaching information, endless personal gripes, or vapid updates about my dog and family situation unless you know me pretty well. Let's face it, sometimes I'm boring/offensive/random, and it takes a special person to appreciate that. Often that person is a blood relative, or at least someone I've known for at least a decade.

Because I'm a fairly private person anyhow, I resisted the whole Facebook thing for years before finally succumbing to the urge to see what my former college buddies are up to. I'm not the sort who needs or wants to freely share ALL of my personal business with the entire world, so that's why I have limited my "friends" to people I really know well. Ultimately, if you’re not a friend of mine in real life, you can't be my friend on Facebook.