[hoodoof]

Some girl from a dating site Googled my phone number, found my name, searched for me on Facebook and then Facebook suggested I friend her, providing me with her full name, which I did not previously know.

If you search for someone on Facebook, then Facebook will suggest to that person that they friend you. Seems a massive privacy hole to me.

[cloudjacker]

I DID NOT KNOW ABOUT THAT PATTERN

I've been aware of how Facebook attaches people to you for a long time, so I deactivated that one, made a new Facebook several years ago primarily for development purposes, different name, different email address, friended a few people from one particular circle, never installed it on my phone

Occasionally I will get random friend suggestions about people in different chapters of my life

Facebook didn't have my address book, or a big enough graph to make these connections

I hadn't considered that those were the people merely searching for my name or variations of it

[pjc50]

I didn't know about this either, but it sounds like you may have found another possible source of the leak: patients putting the name of the psychiatrist into FB search.

If B searches for A and C searches for A, does that imply a relationship between B and C? Especially if they live nearby? Who knows :(

[codingmyway]

In this case I'd almost certainly guess that it is through the phone number. LinkedIn is particularly creepy for this.

[dvcrn]

I noticed that too. The more often you search for someone and click on their profile, the more facebook will promote the connection both ways.

I think it's kind of interesting to 'figure out' how the facebook machine works. How a simple interaction, a location, a conversation or even a purchase on amazon shapes your news feed and the feed of people around you.