Dear Facebook: Get Out of My Face

I engage with my friends in a distinctly old fashioned way -- schmooze with them over coffee or dinner, talk with them on the phone or send them an email.

As such, I don't see the need to "friend" (how did that noun become a verb, anyway?) anyone on Facebook, and use it so little that I forgot my password when I received an email yesterday from Kelly Kennedy at USA Today about a happy hour for the Military Reporters and Editors Group at the National Press Club.

That email then led me to a Facebook link, but when I realized I had forgotten the password, I just closed out the link.

Within nanoseconds a nosy parker (a phrase that dates back to 15th century England which originally referred to an overly curious archbishop of the same name with a prominent proboscis and a favorite phrase of my real world friend Paul McCloskey, editor of Government Computer News) algorithm dispatched an email to me saying: "Sorry you've been having trouble logging into your Facebook account," and then provided a "Get Back on Facebook Now" link.

After this intrusion, I never want to use Facebook again.

I thought this was bad until I read an article last night in the Oct. 16 New York Times Magazine in which Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said he would like to challenge the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which prevents the company from signing up children under the age of 13.

That act, the Times explained, interferes with the Facebook business plan to hook everyone real young and then monetize the relationship early and often.

I don't need or want a "friend" like Zuckerberg.