When I signed up, I made the mistake of giving LinkedIn access to my Gmail address book. Somehow this meant they actually had access to a list of every person I had ever e-mailed, even if only once.

So ever since then, LinkedIn has been trying to trick me into sending invites to people I've never met who I've briefly inquired about sharing an apartment with, various administrators at the schools I attended, and women who I went on some dates with back in 2009. Having an interface that's designed to funnel me into an inauthentic and embarrassing social gesture means I have to keep a state of anxious vigilance whenever I use it.