Hotel California

I've been vegging, watching Italian murder mysteries set in Sicily (beautiful), reading British murder mysteries set in Cambridge (beautiful), and catching up on the latest episodes of favorite series, including "Dead Like Me". I am fascinated by series and movies that deal with the afterlife, but what prompted me to write, is my desire to leave a number of internet groups, also known as networks (like Facebook).

You see, in one episode of "Dead Like Me", the main character states that she was never a joiner. She was never a member of any club, and couldn't really see the point in joining. I was never the member of any club, either, unless I had some specific need to be, like joining the German club because it meant hanging out with the kids in my high school German class, or the Glendale lodge of Sons of Norway because it gave me a connection to Norway (I have no incentive to join the Bergen lodge; I don't have Norwegian relatives in the US). My high school had an international club and all the foreign exchange students were required to join; I never even checked it out. I joined nothing that would be helpful on a resumé.

So I've been looking over all these internet sites that ask you to register, which I did. My life is littered with logins and passwords for networks/sites/forums I no longer use or want. But I am finding that joining is easy; leaving is another matter altogether.

Facebook only lets you suspend your account, not remove it. NaNoWriMo (I'm not a novelist, so I doubt I'll bother again) offers no way of deleting accounts but will cull unused accounts after a year of disuse (darn, why did I log in today looking for information on unregistering?). I've recently joined another group, InterNations, and am at a complete loss as to why I bothered. Not only do they use terms that baffle me (I don't know what they mean by "scout"), but something about the "crowd" has revisited an old feeling on me: I feel out of place. I am just a regular blue-collar girl with a paycheck to match, thrown into a crowd of master degreed professionals relocated by their employers. And the "local" group they offer me to join? Oslo. Meh. I want to unregister but it looks like I have to send an actual snail mail letter to Germany to do so.

Like the song says: You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

UPDATE: I had e-mailed InterNations asking how to cancel, and now I got an e-mail stating that they had deleted my account for me.