Facebook: The Missing Manual

Chapter 3. Finding and Adding Friends

In real life, your social network consists not just of people who work or study where you do, but also of people you’ve formed one-on-one relationships with: teachers, ex-sisters-in-law, bowling buddies, and so on. It’s the same with Facebook: You start with a network of school or work buddies (see Chapter 2), and then add friends one at a time. You can even use Facebook to look up old friends and find new ones.

Why would you want to enlarge your Facebook social circle? Well, having friends is really the whole point of joining Facebook. You get to swap life-in-progress tidbits (both serious and silly), share what you’re reading, play online games…the list is endless. But first you need to gather your pals. Read on to learn how.

How Facebook Friends Work

In the world of Facebook, a friend is any Facebook member who has agreed that you two have something in common. Maybe you play on the same softball team, volunteer at the local animal shelter together, or keep running into each other at parties thrown by the same ex-roommate. Maybe you dated, took a road trip together, or you’re second cousins twice removed. How you know a Facebook friend doesn’t matter; all that matters is that you both agree that you know each other.

Note

Facebook has no way of verifying the relationships between friends. But one of the major differences between Facebook and MySpace—the other big social networking site—is that Facebook strongly encourages truthfulness. So, while ...