Stop stalking me, Facebook, it's over, and you can keep my 3448 friends Like US singing star, Taylor Swift, Birmingham and Facebook will never get back together. Dear Facebook. It's over. I'm leaving you. No, no please, don't. Just don't. Don't even start with your trembling lip and message after message after message about how much you'll miss me, and my friends will miss me, and how even my family won't approve of us breaking up. And please, don't try to tell me how much I'll miss you. That might have worked last time, but I'm serious, Facebook. I mean it this time. We're over. It's not about me. It's you. Taylor knows the score You've changed, Facebook. You used to be cool. God, I can't believe I even typed those words, the way things have gone between us. But what the hell, I suppose I can give you that. Once upon a time, back when you were just starting out on campus, sure, I'll admit it, you used to be cool. You were all shiny and new, kind of sweet, a little geeky, dorky even. But fun. God, Facebook. What happened to the fun? I can't even remember when I began to suspect that you'd changed, but I know a time did come when I knew that things were different between us. That you were different. I was still me, but you weren't just a big deal on campus any more. It was like you were everywhere and everyone loved you and, omigod, didn't you love that? I'm going to tell you this straight, Facebook. I liked you a lot more before you were popular and ... No! Please. Be quiet. Just stop it with the begging and pleading. And please stop messaging me. You need to hear this. I'm not just being painfully hipper-than-thou. You were much cooler before things got so big and crazy. As much as you loved being loved, Facebook, as much as you loved being crazy popular, you turned into a complete jerk about one minute later. It wasn't the way you insisted on moving everything around, on changing my whole set-up on your whim. I knew that about you, going in. That stuff doesn't bother me the way it does some people. But what did bother me, Facebook, was the way that although I was willing to let you have your space and your freedom and your own friends, you never allowed me the same. You started asking me to "check in" with you, not just when I was messing around online, but when I was out in the world doing my thing. My thing, Facebook. Not yours. Mine. Was it really necessary for you to follow me everywhere, and then to tell everyone about it? You know what they call that when others do it? Stalking. It was not cool when you changed my email address to one you could track and control. And it was definitely not cool when you kept trying to make me be friends with Bronwyn Bishop. We have nothing in common, Facebook, and yet there you were for one insane week trying to mash us together - like that was ever going to work. What is it with you and "friends," Facebook? I've got 3½ thousand of them now. There are under-strength divisions of the army with less people in them! But you keep sending me more and more of these so-called friends. Facebook, I don't know any of these people. They're not my friends, they're yours! It's like being in The Matrix surrounded by an ocean of Agent Smiths all wanting to show me their birthing videos and unpublished manuscripts. I don't care that Britnee will miss me. Britnee lives in Beaver's Lick, Arizona, and seems to take poorly framed and focused photographs of "kittehs" for a living. Maybe she and Mrs Bishop should get together, except I fear from Bronwyn's vulpine smile that she would eat the poor kitteh in one bite and Britnee would be upset. But either way, neither Britnee nor Bronwyn are my concern. What's my concern, Facebook, is that way that everywhere I turn now, there you are. In my face, demanding attention. Refusing to let go. I don't believe for a minute that those NSA spooks forced you to spy on everyone. I think they begged you to do it for them because you turned out to be a hell of a lot better at it than they were. They've got satellites and wire taps and buildings full of computers to break into people's private lives, but you didn't need any of that. You just tweaked a few check-boxes 23 pages into the unreadable hell of your privacy settings and certain people were suddenly exposed to the world as secretly playing Taylor Swift's Our Song on a marathon 16-hour radio loop. I'll never forgive you for that, Facebook. The only people I want pawing through my private communications and knowing about my embarrassing Taylor Swift problem are the CIA. I'm pulling the plug, Facebook - and, yes, just in case you were wondering, there have been other social networks and there will be in the future. And you know what? They were better than you. No, just shut up and listen to me for once. Or even better. Listen to Taylor. Taylor knows the score. You go talk to your friends, talk to my friends - all 3448 of them - but we are never, ever, ever, ever getting back together. John Birmingham is an author best known for the novel He Died with a Felafel in His Hand.