I can’t see your face

If I don’t know who you are by looking at your profile picture, I’m not going to accept your friend request. It doesn’t matter if your picture is so small that I can’t make out your face, or if you have a picture of your kid instead of a picture of you, or if you have a picture of an American flag. If your profile picture isn’t a clear shot of your face, I’m not going to accept your friend request.

I can see your face, but have no clue who you are

Sadly for you, this may not be completely your fault. I tend to not have the greatest memory for people, both faces and names.

However, you can curb this reason by sending your friend request very soon after you meet me in person. Like, within 48 hours generally works. While my memory is bad, it’s not quite that bad yet.

You have a second account for your business instead of a page

Businesses should have a Fan Page for themselves, not a second account. Accounts are made for people, Fan Pages for businesses (and some other purposes).

This is not a hard, fast rule, as I do occasionally accept a friend request from someone who set up an account for their business. But I’m always worried that if they don’t know how to use Facebook properly, I may not want them as my friend on there.

We have no mutual friends

If I can see your face, but don’t remember you, I may still accept your friend request if we have quite a few mutual friends. If, however, I have no clue who you are and we have no mutual friends, chances are slim that I will accept you as a friend.

Again, these are just guidelines I personally go by. I’m not necessarily recommending you do so. Plenty of people accept any and all friend request they get.

Obviously, I’m not one of those people.