An old classmate “friended” me on Facebook, but I don’t want to accept. High school wasn’t my favorite time. Is there a way to do this without being really rude?

There is a difference between a friend, a colleague, and an acquaintance. In school, in work, in communities, we develop different degrees of relationships; not all are your friends, some are your colleagues and others are just acquaintances. An invitation to engage in a social relationship via Internet is not the same as when you receive an invitation to a class reunion.  If you don’t have good memories of this old classmate, or if you don’t have good memories of the time you two were together in high school, you can decline the invitation.