sorry but I decline your invitation to be friends. it is not because i do not like you.

Nothing personal, please do not get upset.

I need to keep it real man.

I only friend people that get close to me. Like, I will friend a next door neighbor. That is legit.

The friends I already have, are grandfathered in from my old policy where I was just the W* of Babylon and friended all comers as most people seem to do nowadays. W* stands for Wombat, of course.

But I think that most people have a misguided notion about friends. It is not how many you have. It is the quality that counts.

Agreed.

People try to friend me everyday since I started posted on the forums. I don't know why, they do not even write me a message half the time. Also they challenge me to chess. I used to have 900+ friends, it was getting ridiculous, I did not even remember who they were or when they got friended.

I feel sorry for young people that think number of friends is some kind of status symbol and get all depressed over it or think other people are better than them based on Internet junk. I am trying to set a good example for the younger people. Do not let Internet virus infect your brain, get out and mingle with real people in real life, if you want real friends.

must be the groucho policy

who needs friends anyway. I don't need no one

Magnus looks like he is laughing at a fart joke in that profile pic.

Does your cat always play the Grob? 

Sometimes I send a friend request as a joke because of having a dominant performance or game against a cocky opponent. Hell, I send 4 requests at a time to flood their screen and laugh as they decline all 4 requests. Not saying it's always the right thing to do..... Sometimes just incredibly satisfying. Maybe a bad habit.......

My cat came to me one day and said Look. I don't have time to learn all these openings. Teach me an opening where I can crush Black every game, really easy. I said, O.K., this is what you need to do. The rest is history. His rating is higher than mine now.

Don't lie, nobody wants to be your friend.At least not me

If a person shares being on a Vote Chess group or something like that and may want to share games in a particular opening/defence, being a "friend" is plausible.

Well, you are a robot, right?

"I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

This is the best thread never!

I think the title exceeded the max characters allowed, cos I don't see it on the most active list.

Similarly, I like to message them and directly ask why they sent me a friend request. Chess.com has literally millions of members, so essentially my thought is why choose me? XD 

Honestly though, if they message back a legitimate reason: I usually accept the friend request. If they don't even have the time/effort to even respond in a reasonable amount of time, then I don't need to friend them. I agree that sometimes online "friends" can become ridiculous to the point where you can't even recall their username or why you are "friends." I'd rather have a select few friends and at least know who they are to a degree.

Well, I don't wonder why they choose me, it is due to my sparkling personality and winsome ways. You will reach a point in your online presence here where messaging back everyone that tries to friend you will get old. Then you will become a mean curmudgeon and Decline friend requests and imagine someone sitting at home crying because you declined their friend request. 

really???

Oh they are just game-players, like the chess players they are, accumulating "points". They think # of friends compensates for rating. (As if rating mattered).

You wanna be friends optimissed? I read your post on the beatles mono sound

Bringing friends together on chess.com. This is what I do.