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What would you do?

1166 Views 19 Replies 19 Participants Last post by  4Katie
What would yo do, if you had a family member lie to you?

I have someone very close to me who is a teenager, who is lying to me.  She is telling me he facebook is messed up and that she can't post. Yet due to a diffrent facebook I can see she post multiple times a day.  She tells me she can't even get on it.  I think she is thinking I am so dumb and don't realize what she has done.  Yet I just went in and blocked her.  When I confronted her and said that if she didn't want to be friends on facebook, I would rather just delete her off of mine in that case.  She threw a fit.  Yet I am not into having people on my facebook just to pad it which is what I feel is happening. 

Since she is lying about not blocking me and is tyring to act innocent, should I just keep her blocked or would you delete her off of the facebook? 
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Both of you get off FaceBook, sit down at a table with a cup of coffee and TALK TO EACH OTHER !!
I honestly have no idea what the issue here is. I might have suggestions/opinion if I knew what the problem really was. Teenager doesn't want to be friends on FB and is using a passive aggressive way of going about it? An adult wants to be friends with a teen who doesn't and has multiple accounts with which to check the teen's activity? One filtered the other?

Seriously, I do not grasp the issue... Kids lie, kids don't want adults to see everything they post on FB. I'm not sure it's worth getting upset over. But, in general...be the bigger person and just let it go. It's Facebook. 
I like Napcat's suggestion.  Thumper raised some good points-- is it a deeper issue?
this is a question that is hard to answer as there has to be many other underlying issues. But as suggested I think both of you should set out a time to have a chat as it appears to be something that is quite bothersome for you.
My nieces, 13 and 15, are not allowed to have "friends" who are over 18.  And they're not allowed to have friends they can't identify in the real world to their parents.

They had to get special permission from their parents to be friends with their cousins who are older -- not that they're bad kids but just on principal.

Also, their parents are their "friends" and they're not allowed to "unfriend" them or they lose computer privileges.  Their parents are allowed to inspect their FB page at any time and if they find something not appropriate, they lose computer privileges.  If they change the password to where the parents can't log on, they lose computer privileges.

Only recently have they have allowed them to be "friends" with me and another of my brothers.

The attitude of my brother and his wife is one of "trust, but verify". . . . .and, really, it's more for their protection than that they think the girls would really do anything they shouldn't.
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I think I am the only one in the world who feels this way, but facebook freaks me out.  I only opened a page because my father did and asked me to.  I started getting all my nieces and nephews friends requests.  What was going on with their facebook was not something their Aunt should be peeping at.  And I did, I felt like a peeper.

I say let your teenaged relative alone.  Send her a note saying you are going to unfriend her to give her her privacy and then just let it go.
???

Facebook seems to be such a tangled mess.  Sometimes I think I'd like to register and have just a simple page.  But I don't think there can be anything simple about it.  I'll just stay out of that web.
NapCat said:
Both of you get off FaceBook, sit down at a table with a cup of coffee and TALK TO EACH OTHER !!
Yes. The two of you need to sort this out in a way that respects each other's dignity. Leave the whole FB-friends thing out of it, and address the real issue.
I would love to sit down and talk with her but she is over a thousand miles away.  As to the other facebook account it is not mine but another relatives who can see her post and tells me about them.  I also am not trying to be nosey in her life it was one of the only ways I had to communicate with her.  Esp since she won't talk on the phone but only texts which she always answers.  Also it wasn't about her not wanting to be friends with me on facebook.  Because if that was the case than it would be fine with me as I have told her countless times. I have also told her in a round about way that I know she is blocking me from seeing certain parts of her facebook to which she lies and says her account is messed up.
My problem was her lying to me.  I don't get on facebook bu once a week so getting off of facebook is not the problem since I don't get on often. What I was asking was should I un-friend her since I know she is lying to me or just let her see that she is blocked. 
Also I was asking more about once again the lying part.  What would you do?  As I said I just can't sit down with her, she is over 1000 miles away.  I can't phone her she doesn't answer for anyone but her work. No not even her mother or father.  I can only text her and texting a teenager over you knowing their lying to you will not be pleasent.
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It seems to me that either the girl in question has forgotten how to actually communicate with people, or doesn't want to.  You can't make someone talk to you.  Maybe a snail mail- actual letter- letting her know your contact info and that you would like to be able to have a conversation whenever she decides she's able to communicate, even if it is years away- would be the thing.
For me, lying is a deal breaker.  When my kids would lie to me, it was a grounding offense.  They quickly learned that there was no getting around it and they were not good enough at it to get away with it.  They are now young men that understand that telling the truth is easier in the long run. 

In your case, with this girl being 1000 miles away, she is obviously not in your sphere if influence.  But the lesson you can give her is that lying has consequences and that consequence is un-friending her if that is the route you want to go.  You tell her why and let it go with that.  If she comes around and apologizes and proves to you that she is trustworthy, you can friend her again. 
I'm not sure what you're trying to decide here - whether to unfriend her or block her? They both have the same outcome for you, correct? It's clear she is trying to gracefully back out of a facebook relationship with you (but doing an absolutely awful job at it). I know when I was a teen, I wouldn't be comfortable confronting an adult relation like that. Heck, I still delete family off my facebook if they start spamming my feed with those awful chain messages. I certainly don't think she should have lied about it, but she probably saw it as an easy way out that wouldn't hurt your feelings.
Sounds like you really are not all that close to her. Facebook is a great place for drama and it often gets out of hand. I would just let it sit where it is for now and let the drama die down. If you want to know how she is doing, sounds like you can get that information from another relative.
I hope the two of you can work things out.
I'm sorry but this sounds a little...odd. You say your friend is a teenage girl , so I take it you're an adult? If so, take a step back and look at how worked up you're getting over a teenage girl  lying to you on Facebook. Go your separate ways and friend someone who is not a teenager. 
derek alvah said:
I'm sorry but this sounds a little...odd. You say your friend is a teenage girl , so I take it you're an adult? If so, take a step back and look at how worked up you're getting over a teenage girl lying to you on Facebook. Go your separate ways and friend someone who is not a teenager.
Actually, she's stated the teen is her niece, so it's not that odd.

I've had little experience w/ teens who lie. DH's niece lies a lot, but b/c of the relationship we have, whenever I catch her on it, I call her on it. She's actually told her parents (who don't do much in the way of dicipline) that she likes being @ my house b/c I "make her mind her manners". She has tried to steal from me before and got caught. Then she lied about stealing, so her punishment was she wasn't allowed over @ my house for a while and then when she's over now (she lives 18 hrs away), she's never alone.

I think the best thing to do, in your situation, is to back off for a while. Your niece isn't going to start telling you the truth and you'll only be more stressed the more you think about it.
Are you even sure she's lying? The number of people I've encountered that don't understand Facebook all the time is enormous - myself included. A friend was upset because she had missed some posts and it turned out she views Top News instead of Most Recent - which means LOTS of posts never make it to her wall. Another friend really does have a messed up Facebook account and her whole wall is not visable to some people - she knows it's something in her privacy settings but can't figure out how to fix it.

Even if she does exclude you from certain posts - she is entitled to her privacy. Lots of young people have different groups set up - College Friends, Family, Work Friends, etc. and only send certain posts to certain groups. She should be allowed to do that without being taken to task for it. If you find yourself getting upset over this it may truly be best to block or unfriend her.

My own sister posts stuff that upsets me quite often. I am considering blocking her. Many of her posts are quite nasty and judgemental. But she is allowed to post them and I have the choice of discussing through comments, privately on inbox or via email, or just blocking her if it bugs me too much.
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NapCat has a good idea.
I agree that she was probably trying to find a non-hurtful way to keep an adult from seeing everything she posts. I don't have any problem with that (since you're not her parent), but I would let her know how lying will affect your relationship. She really should understand that.

My nieces, 13 and 15, are not allowed to have "friends" who are over 18. And they're not allowed to have friends they can't identify in the real world to their parents.

They had to get special permission from their parents to be friends with their cousins who are older -- not that they're bad kids but just on principal.

Also, their parents are their "friends" and they're not allowed to "unfriend" them or they lose computer privileges. Their parents are allowed to inspect their FB page at any time and if they find something not appropriate, they lose computer privileges. If they change the password to where the parents can't log on, they lose computer privileges.
I like it! I wish more parents understood that parent is also a verb.
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