Facing problems

Are you addicted to Facebook?

Do you want to dump your Facebook page and get an actual life, and you need help finding all the places you have to click to make your profile disappear?

It's called the 1,200-Steps Program. You'll be completely anonymous.

Doesn't that sound attractive for a change?

Right now 45 total strangers are waiting to see if I am going to friend them or quietly ignore them. Yesterday, the new Hyatt Hotel in downtown Indy asked to be my friend. Their request began: "Hi, Dick."

I think it's weird when a building calls you by your first name.

The other day I noticed stuff had appeared in my profile that I did not put there. In the "I Like" section it said that I was fond of Latex Novelties.

Fortunately, my son explained to me that it was the name of a rock group.

The idea behind all this is networking is knowing people who know other people. For example: I know that Charlene Reynolds and I have 12 mutual friends. The problem is that I don't know Charlene Reynolds.

If people approached you this way before computers, you'd think they were crazy. "Hey, Jack? How are you?"

"Hi, Dick. This is your lucky day. I have a list here of 50 people you don't know from Adam. Why not give them a call? You could spice up the conversation by mentioning your latex obsession."

Occasionally, a personal survey pops up on my page.

"Do you think Dick wears a hairpiece?"

"Do you have any interest in seeing Dick without any ... "

Look, I'm embarrassed just repeating this stuff. Plus, I wasn't happy with the results, although my beagle was grinning ear to ear.

I couldn't get that survey off my page. Whenever I ask someone for help editing Facebook stuff, I always get the same answer: "I don't know how to do that; you just have to mess around with the settings."

And what's with all the suggestions on this site? Albert suggested you read this. Mary has suggested this site.

If I wanted suggestive ideas, I'd be on craigslist, not Facebook.

Now let's talk about Lauren Rosenberg.

On my profile page there's a bio of her and a nice little ad about her PR firm in Arizona.

I didn't put her there. I don't want her there. I don't even know who she is.

But she is obviously very good at PR. I tried for two hours this morning to remove her from my profile. I moved my cursor over every part of her photo until I started feeling a little creepy about the whole process. I don't want my wife seeing this attractive young lady right in the middle of my homepage.

Between that and Latex Novelties, there's just so much explaining I can do.

The bottom line here is I really need to remove myself from Facebook. I'm spending too much time with my friends and not nearly enough time with my friends.

If you want to convince me to change my mind, I look forward to your input.

Isn't that what friends are for?