Friend invitation from people you don't know

Quite often I get a friend invitation from a person who I don't know and with whom I never played or conversated. Does it happen to you as well? Why and how do you respond?

I decline them all. If I have no knowledge of them then there is no reason to add them to my friends list. 

I get them too and have responded in various ways from simply accepting to confronting them asking why did they want to be friends with me. I've gotten some varying responces as well. But so far I have not acquired any worthwhile friends in this manner. So I conclude it is best to gain friends the old fashioned way. 

Happens to me all the time, probably because I'm a moderator and an admin in the cheating forum.

Dalmonion - I don't know the answer to your question, but I've sent you a friend request anyway.

Absolutely! Those people are just collecting friends as a status symbol. They never want to talk about anything.

It's the same with joining clubs. I manage a few clubs and I will get 2 or 3 member requests every day. But sometimes I will see a person already belongs to a couple of hundred clubs. That means their membership in my clubs will be practically meaningless, so I don't approve them. If they really have an interest in my club then they will contact me.

Chess.com in a community. We should be friendly towards each other. Maybe you posted something somewhere and someone thought it was hillariously funny, or very insightful. Maybe you we're giving advice, or answering a question and 3 other people thought, "Oh, I didn't know that". I accept friend request but I'm a little leary of brand new members because they could be members who come back with account after account after account. If it turns out that they are real negative people, you can always UN-friend them, you know, like your 1st  7 wives. 

# 8

is someone great!

god bless you for try, try, try, try,try,try, try, and trying again.l

Friend invitations from unknown people should often be refused, but what if that person is friendly?What if he just wants a friend on Chess.com? You never know. Sometimes people on the internet are very hostile, so you never know if that invitation is from someone very kind-hearted, or from someone who is bad and wants to know your personal data.

It's rare to get one from someone I've never seen, but it happens. Usually a new account. I ignore it for a few days, and if they don't message me or anything then I decline it.

In practice, I accept most friend requests just in case they actually have a reason to want to friend me. But now and then I look thru my friends list and remove those with whom I have had no subsequent contact.

But if it's a good looking girl with a sexy avatar I reject that immediately. Sorry girls, I'm only here for the chess.

And if you were here for the girls, it would also be correct to immediately reject those requests lol 

I got an invite from myself yesterday. I rejected it.

Yeah, probably 80% of those are actually guys, and 50% of those are here to cause trouble in one way or another.

" Why and how do you respond?"

1st, before I accept I challenge 'em to a game. Then they can reapply to befriend me.

It is not that it is hard to believe that, it is that if you look at the pics then do a Google pic lookup it is obvious that the pic is from somewhere else. Then you see what they post and it confirms it. Just guys that are causing trouble. 

I see some females on here that are actually here for the chess. Some who use their photos (which I think are real) are "good looking" as you say.

But overall, the majority of the "female" posters that have those sexy pics are just guys.

There are lots of good-looking girls interested in chess.  However, many of them don't use their own photo as their avatar to avoid being harassed by immature male players.

And there are a lot of guys who like to put on a female persona for whatever reason.

There are even some players who use avatars of non-human species "for whatever reason"