Dear Facebook.com,

I have just one question for you: Exactly who do you think you are?

You think you can make “to friend” a grammatically correct verb? You think you can link my name to that heinous picture of me, face distorted in mid-chew of artichoke dip? You think you can distract me from starting my politics paper, let alone accomplish anything real?

You think you can make my friend “network” not simply the people I love and care about: but also, Eric Durrant from University of Texas (who is that anyway? I am still trying to figure it out), and 50 other people from Whitman that I sometimes make eye contact with, and about a hundred other people I haven’t spoken to since seventh grade and probably wouldn’t even say hi to in Target if we were both in the DVD/music section, reaching for the same copy of “The Lion King”?

You think you can make me automatically exclaim when looking through someone’s digital camera, “Ooh, that’d make a good profile picture!”?

Well, you thought right.

Therefore, damn you, Facebook. You do, in fact, cause all of these things. Yet, despite these treacherous habits of yours, I must confess this: I have fallen madly love with you.

This isn’t the butterfly-and-rainbows kind of love, either. This is stomach-churning, gut-twisting want: raw, obsessive desire. I finally understand what Simple Plan was singing about all those years ago. I’m addict: I’m addicted to you.

Let’s state this matter-of-factly: we aren’t good for each other. No, rather, you are bad for me. All you ever do is take and take and take from my time and energy, and what do I get? Well, I get easy access to the lives and profiles of my friends, acquaintances, and even some people who are neither.

Brilliant. Basically, I get to be a stalker. It’s not a great trade-off, if you ask me.

I am seriously questioning your intentions with me, Facebook. Sometimes, late at night, after I have sworn on my roommate’s life that I would be in bed by 11:45 p.m., I pause at my keyboard long enough to consider the monster I have become. It is an hour past midnight on Monday night (the night before my first Geology exam, mind you), and I am looking through pictures of Andy Ferris, that kid who played Puck in my middle school’s rendition of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” He wasn’t even a good Puck.

So I will say it again: damn you, Facebook.

But until I realize how much better I am without you, I will continue to be your devoted user, forever coming back for another hit. Yes, I will stay in this unhealthy, life-sucking relationship. Because, when it comes down to it, love is love, and you can’t help how you feel.

Disgustedly yet faithfully yours,

Lauren