Fan

On Are We Friends?, a "fan" is someone who has expressed interest in becoming your friend but isn't yet your accepted friend. The fan relationship is one-directional and exists in two cases:

1. They sent you a friend request and you haven't accepted yet. They become a fan automatically the moment they hit "send request." If you accept, the fan row goes away (they become a friend, not a fan). If you decline, the fan row persists — they still like you, they just aren't your friend.

2. They explicitly followed you without sending a friend request. Less common but supported. Public profiles can be followed by anyone with an account.

Fan count is shown on every public profile next to friend count. It's a real, separately-counted metric — fans don't double-count as friends and vice versa. When a friendship is accepted, the underlying fan relationship is removed so a person never appears in both lists.

Why fans exist: friendship requests are one-tap and serious. "Following" is a lower-commitment way to keep tabs on someone whose posts or matches interest you, without committing to a full friendship.