SEATTLE -- Last week I was reprimanded for being engaged, but here's the rub — I wasn't.

I was only Facebook-engaged, which is like joking-engaged or lying-engaged. My friends know I'm not really engaged. My Facebook fiancée is under no illusion that I am actually planning on marrying her, but it sure looks better to be Facebook-engaged than Facebook-single with a capital S.

Everyone knew I wasn't really engaged. Everyone, that is, except my father, who joined Facebook recently, immediately looked at my profile and proceeded to have a minor conniption fit over the phone due to what appeared to be my scandalous engagement and my concealment of it.

After much assurance that the engagement was a sham, the absurdity of the situation set in. I have friends who claim that even their grandmothers are computer-savvy, who Twitter all day long, who believe that technology makes their lives easier. But last week it occurred to me that despite its ubiquity, technology doesn't really simplify much of anything. It actually creates problems and complications where there weren't any before.

Take relatives on Facebook. It's inherently awkward to reject your aging great-aunt's friend request — after all, such a rejection could mean a feud until said great aunt kicks the bucket — but it is also inherently awkward to allow said great aunt unfettered access to your personal life.

So what do you do? Do you reject your aunt, risking awkward run-ins at family gatherings for years to come? Do you "limited profile" that woman, knowing she will wonder why there is so much white space where your wall should be? Or do you welcome her with open arms to your inside jokes, your profanity-peppered status updates, and photographic documentation of every bad choice you've ever made, not to mention that most dreaded of dreaded topics — your relationship status?

Forget the dangers of employers checking out your Facebook profile. Relatives are a far graver threat!

My father's rocky entry into the digital age forced me to make a choice. It wasn't so much that it bothered me to have to explain that very few people on Facebook are actually married, although it did, and it wasn't so much that my profile has its fair share of questionable photo albums and questionable wall posts, although it does.

What it all came down to was that while it's natural for those of us who grew up digital to have a digital component to our friendships and relationships, and a digital representation of ourselves on the Internet, my relationship with my father has never had one. And it hasn't needed one.

So that evening, I did the unthinkable — I unfriended my dad on Facebook.

SOURCE: Seattle Times