why is it that people want to know if you know them

Why should you add someone you don't know? I never add people I don't know. I don't send messages asking if I know them, though but sometimes I feel like I should. If this person for whatever reason cannot come up and talk to me in person in order to get to know me, then I don't want them on my Facebook friends list. There are dangerous people out there, and I'm not going to add every creeper who wants to "get to know me".

Do you mean on myLot??? Or some other social networking site? I guess that they want to know who you are so that they can add you as a friend. They want to see if they know you before they become acquainted with you. Some people have an lack of trust and that could be the reason. Or they may think that someone may be trying to scam or push spam on them. No one has asked me this question before.

You do have to be careful as to what information complete strangers has on you. I had heard once that a person on facebook had said that they were going on vacation on their status. When they came back home they had found their house robbed. So now I have my profile only viewable to people who are already friends.

They do that because they have had or heard of bad situations coming from adding people they didn't know. There have been hackers and stalkers and how do any of these people know who you are or what your intensions are? Try to think about it from the stanpoint of the other person.

I never say yes to strangers unless they send a message giving a reason why they want to be friends with me. It's not that I don't want to meet new people, but I prefer doing it in real life or on a discussion board if online, and not on a social networking site. It might sound a bit backward, as meeting strangers is social networking, but for me facebook is more about taking care of the social networks I have than making new ones. I do that elsewhere. Unless of course I get a really interesting message with the friend request.

Some people don't want perfect strangers reading their status updates or any of the personal information they have in their profiles. Either that or they're just set in their ways and happy with only knowing the people they already know and do not wish to meet anybody new.

Wow that is weird, I never had that happen to me on here. Or anywhere for that fact on the internet. Maybe they are just really skeptical of who they add and they have had bad experiences in the past with adding people they don't know, so they rather just add people they do know and have gotten to know. I wouldn't worry about it though.