But there's a lot more junk on Facebook these days. Whereas I used to spend my FB time catching up with friends and seeing what my nieces were doing, now I seem to be scanning through an increasing number of ads. I'm getting a lot of unsolicited information about local realtors, bridal consultants, South American vacations, and available singles in my area. At this rate, I'll have to find some other way to learn about my high school classmates' grandchildren.
Most requests I get for Facebook friendship come from people I know. Sometimes they are people I used to know and don't remember. If I see that we went to the same high school or university, or if we are from the same hometown, then I figure we must have some connection and I agree to accept the friend request.
Increasingly, I get friend requests out of the blue from complete strangers - people I don't know, never knew, and have no connection to. It's flattering to assume that a perfect stranger likes my posts and doesn't want to miss editions of BillsWeek, but face it, I'm not that much of a public figure.
I'm fairly certain that the scantily clad woman from eastern Europe who wants to friend me because I'm "cute" is not interested in my blog. Not only is she really barking up the wrong tree, she is usually trying to sell me something. When a handsome young man from south Asia wants to become friends "just to get to know me better," I know that someone's marketing is a little more sophisticated.
Which brings me to Johnny Poling. He first showed up on my Facebook feed a couple of months ago. Initially, I assumed he was a friend of a friend or something because those kinds of posts are not that unusual. When he kept showing up, I drilled into his profile a bit to see what our connection was. Turns out, we have no mutual friends. He doesn't go to my church and is not from any town where I ever lived. He appears to be very young, straight, and has long hair. Not that there's anything wrong with any of that stuff, but there is no discernible reason why he would continually be asking me to friend him.
He also asks me to answer odd, random questions in the reply section. "Rate your Freak Level from 1 to 10." "Describe yourself using the first initial of your first name." "Who doesn't have roaches?" "Comment your battery percent and add who likes it." And most ironically, "If you're a real account, comment real under here ..."
All of my real friends occasionally rant about Donald Trump or gun control. Many of them like the daily Bloom County cartoons. But no one real has ever asked about my freak level.
What is a freak level?
It is finally occurring to me that Johnny Poling is not a real person, but a kind of "phishing" persona who is used to gather information on Facebook users, people like me, who are innocently checking their feed for news of friends. When he asks those inane questions he always asks, he's actually learning how to direct advertising to me. They think I will be too polite to refuse his continuing requests.
Well guess again, Johnny. I am not falling for that. Consider yourself blocked.
On the other hand, if you are a real person, indicate it by posting your opinion about Donald Trump.
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