Hannah Croft is a journalism freshman and Mustang Daily freshman columnist.
I’ve never been much for confrontation, especially when it involves romance.
I couldn’t even tell my fifth grade crush I liked him, and that inability has only worsened since coming to college. I prefer to avoid awkward encounters. And apparently, I’m not alone. I recently discovered a whole website devoted to cowardly hopeless romantics — likealittle.com.
The website popped up on my Facebook news feed a week ago, and since then has gone as viral as the “Lemme Smang It” video.
For those of you who haven’t logged on to likealittle.com yet, it’s a website where university students anonymously post comments about the attractive people they see around campus. You choose a gender, a hair color and a location, and say whatever you want about this person within the realm of “appropriateness” (they won’t post the message if it’s not squeaky clean).
Here’s an example, pulled straight from the site.
Female. Trinity Hall. Blonde. “The first time I saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful girl in school, and I couldn’t believe you actually talked to me.”
Sweet right? Not all of them are — some of them are borderline creepy — but this one made me smile, so I figured I’d share it with you.
This whole thing works out well because now I know just from sitting at my computer there are a ton of hot guys in bro tanks at Sierra Madre, and the girl who was on the elliptical third from the left at approximately 11 a.m. has a nice ass. People are rather candid when they can hide behind the anonymity of the Internet.
Likealittle.com is a great procrastination tool. Here I am, sitting in the study lounge, browsing the website. It’s especially funny when you come across a shout out to someone you know.
“Wearin a red mac miller tee and backwards black hat today. See you all the time and you be lookin so good.”
Coincidentally my friend Nick had just posted on Facebook a picture of himself wearing his Mac Miller t-shirt and backwards black baseball hat. Nick, someone in cyberspace wants you. I hope you feel special.
The only problem with this likealittle business is that if you discover someone’s looking for you, you have no idea who it is. If you recall my last column on dormcest, you know that I’m an advocate of speaking your mind (though I don’t take my own advice in this area). But what’s the point of acknowledging your attraction to a person if they don’t have the chance to say they feel it too?
That was my co-columnist J.J.’s reaction when he noticed a shout out to him on the site (Unless there’s another blonde kid in Cerro who runs nonstop and attempts to rock a pink polo on a regular basis). He texted me as soon as he saw it asking what he should do about it.
So here’s what you do if you find yourself the object of a likealittle post:
1. Let a few hours pass before you make a comment — you don’t want to seem too desperate.
2. If there is no possible way this isn’t you, message the person. Say something clever/cute/sexy and let them know it’s you they want.
3. Get the person’s name. Then you can find them on a not-so-anonymous social networking site.
4. Since, according to the “testimonials” on the likealittle website, many happy couples are born out of these anonymous flirtations, you should probably start planning your first romantic date. And then your wedding. Because obviously, if you were searching for someone on likealittle and you found them, it’s fate.
So maybe there is hope for the cowardly kids on likealittle who don’t have the guts to say how they feel to someone’s face.
Effective or not, likealittle is sweet and mostly innocent fun. And there’s nothing wrong with that. So I guess, until that is no longer the case, then post away, cowardly students. Maybe, just maybe, the object of your affection will come across your post while zoning out in class.