How to reduce the number of focus points on my Nikon D5100?

I don't want 11 for now, just three: Left, right, and center.

I think I may be inept at Googling:/

Added (1). I don't think the people here are amateurs; we have all sorts of people here who are good at all sorts of things. What makes you think only amateurs browse Q & A websites? Sad.

Your camera has a number of different zone focusing modes which decide where the camera will look for focus. You press the "i"nformation button on the back until it takes you into the quick acess menu on the camera, and then use the arrow selector to move down to "AF Area Mode". Press the "OK" button, and you can now select the various AF-Area modes. Once you get that far it should be pretty obvious!

I don't think you can do that. You can switch to single point AF and then select which AF point you want to use though. Manual here:
http://www.nikonusa.com/...100_EN.pdf

So why would you want three? That makes no sense. Even if you could do that you're still letting the camera decide where to focus and that's strictly a no, no regardless of what the camera makers tell you.

Get a grip here. A single point, dead center, is the only usable way to do auto focus. Every pro I know of, including me, never uses full auto, never uses more than one, dead center focus point because it doesn't work.

With a single point, and apparently you've not thought of this, lets you tell the camera where to focus, not the other way around.

Read your owner's manual, figure it out. If you don't have a manual go to the Nikon site and download one.