I am away from my column

I'm addicted to AOL away messages.\nThere, I've said it. And to tell you the truth, I feel a lot better.\nYou see, I read away messages a lot. I don't know why. It doesn't make any sense, but then, neither do most addictions. Oh, I'm not saying it's as bad as alcoholism or anything. Yet.\nAs soon as I log on to AOL, I check who's online. When I determine that there's no one I really want to chat with, I immediately scan the away messages.\nI understand it doesn't make sense. The very nature of away messages is that they are, in fact, away. But for some reason, I just have to see what they say.\nLike most psychological diseases -- oh yes, this is a disease -- I can trace it back to a childhood incident. You see, in the early high school years, I was dumped online. But that's not all. I was dumped in an AOL profile. I believe it was under the category of "marital status." She said she was "dating Mr. Wonderful ... Eric." \nMy name is definitely not Eric.\nEver since that fateful day, I have felt like I need to make sure no one is talking about me. \nAnyway, with every cloud there is a silver lining. Because of my obsession with scanning away messages, I like to think of myself as a kind of expert in the field (yes, it is a field).\nYou don't believe me? Well let me break it down for you.\nThere are three main types of messages (not counting the dreaded default message); simple location, life details and deep and meaningful.\nLet's begin with the simple locations. This is obviously what the away message was intended for. I mean, the natural question that one must ask themselves when someone is away is "Where the stink are they?"\nSome examples of these messages include, "Sleeping" or "At class, be back at 5." I have no qualms with these messages. However, I do not often use them myself for fear of someone stalking me. Seriously, do you want the whole world to know when you'll be back from class? I know I don't.\nThe next category of messages, life details, spun off of the first category. They usually give some fact about where a person is or what they are doing, but then they share way too much detail.\nHere's an example, "It's 3:42 in the morning and I have just gone to sleep after studying for 3 hours for my biology test and reading 100 pages of history."\nNow, this example brings up another interesting point. It goes without saying that no one in their right mind gives the tiniest crap about what you spent your night doing. However, I would be interested in asking this person why they are online all night.\nMoving right along, we will now focus on the third category of away messages, the deep and meaningful. I must admit that I am often a member of this category. These messages are either song lyrics or sometimes lines from books or television.\nI feel a need to defend this category because of my involvement, but really, I can't. My only excuse is that I have nothing better to say so I steal someone else's words (which is a great characteristic for a journalist to have).\nSo if you're ever sitting at your computer bored, look over these categories and try something new. If you are a lyric person, try telling the world your location, or vice versa. All I'm asking is that you keep it interesting for people like me while we try to overcome our addictions.\nIt's a long road to recovery but I know the first step is admitting I have a problem.\nNow if only I knew the second step.