What is her motivation?

[BukLau]

I'm a member of some parenting groups on Facebook, there is a woman on a few of the same ones who regularly posts saying she's looking for friends as she's lonely.

She'll get lots of replies from others saying they'd like to be friends / have play dates / chat. I was one of the people who replied to one of her earlier posts and added her as I know as well as most how isolating motherhood can be.

Lots of the other mums across the groups have added her over time and as such her friends list is huge (in the thousands) but she doesn't reply to comments or messages from people reaching out, just adds them. I know this because the people who have added her often comment on her subsequent group posts asking for friends saying things like "I did send you a message" or "I'm still happy to chat if you still want to talk to somebody"

She does this every couple of weeks.

What is her motivation? It's a bit strange imo.

I would guess at attention seeking. You tried to do a lovely thing with lovely intentions,but I would back away! It is very rude in my opinion to not at least acknowledge a message from someone even if she wrote something like I would love to meet for a play date in the park when ristrictions are over its lovely of you to offer may I get intouch when things are allowed again? The fact she is not even acknowledging is a sign to me she is not someone with manners or even basic well you know! Leave her to it and ignore would be my advice!

Maybe she doesn't know how to form friendships so is genuinely lonely and looking for friends, but hits a wall when people reach out and offer it.

Attention and affirmation. Delete and block - you aren't a stranger's emotional support human.

Or she is one of those people who wants hundreds of FB friends to "prove" how popular she is?

Some of the posts she puts on seem to be a copy and paste job as they're identical sometimes and say (among other things) "I'm looking for a best friend I can talk to about everything, send each other gifts for no reason, talk on the phone" etc.

I did wonder whether the "send each other gifts" was her motivation to receive things but if she doesn't reply to anybody reaching out then she's clearly not on the scrounge

It's a non event really, just baffles me a bit.

If she has social anxiety , maybe she gets terrified about taking the next step after someone replies. When I've been depressed, my social anxiety which is usually v mild, ramps right up & I've started things, social or otherwise & then suddenly felt overwhelmed & not carried it through.

Totally attention seeking. There is a woman on some of the infertility groups I’m on does the same. But in that sense I think it’s worse because it’s pretty clear she’s making up her story based on copying bits of other peoples stories but then her story doesn’t work together. I would never pull her up on it but I know she’s doing it.

Is it a real account? I've joined lots of Facebook mum groups in my area and a bit beyond for various reasons and whenever I see someone with an identical message popping up across a few of them they're either marketing something and/or they're a real account.

*NOT a real account

Attention seeking or social anxiety yes It could be either.

She's definitely real, she posts her children alot and has documented her most recent pregnancy. Alot of home videos etc.

I've seen this before. Someone posts messages like this, in many other open fb groups or pages. People add them, they add others. Sometimes ending up with thousands of 'friends'. Then, they change their account to either a commercial page (so therefore can spam a huge amount of people without having to pay for adverts), also looking like they have a lot of 'likes' for their company/organisation.

I've seen once someone do this and change their page to a hate racist page, thus making it look like everyone who had connected were sympathetic to their cause.

I never add nor accept anyone on facebook who I don't know pretty well for this reason.