Many online ¨friends¨ are really more like acquaintances. I have quite a few of them but I honestly can not maintain most of them to be real friendships. I generally have a policy of rarely turning down friend requests on online sites.  I have also very occasionally asked to be friends merely to be able to find someone again who made posts I enjoyed, so I can find them easily again,  not with the expectation that we would become important in each other´s lives.

However, with italki I have been starting to wonder about that policy of rarely turning down friend requests, because perhaps when someone makes a friend request here they are expecting to be a true language partner and expecting to spend time together discussing the language.  I have far more friends than I truly have language partners.  The ones I consider language partners are the ones that we have regularly practiced languages together.

In ¨real¨life I have many acquaintances and a few friends.  

So do those of you who prefer fewer online friends frequently reject friendship requests? 

Hi mahmoud , Susan and Katarina , thanks for your comments .

Mahmoud , I hope u could improve your English , maybe you could help someone in Arabic and take help in English and make new freindship!

It sounds there is a simple reality  ; even if u have a huge list of friends  , u have time only for  a few of them .!