Our Generation's Way of Flirting: LikeALittle, ISawYou, and Other Missed Love Connections Made Possible Online

Almost all of our social experiences that were once awkward and uncomfortable are now seamless and straightforward thanks to the rapidly advancing capabilities of the Internet. We can use LinkedIn to network with distant family friends and intimidating alumni. We can use Facebook to virtually “request” friendships that we would have never initiated in person. We can use Twitter to casually send 140 character messages to celebrities we secretly stalk and people we shyly admire. Now that any social interaction can be carefully rehearsed and edited to our liking from the safety of our computers, it’s not surprising we’ve found a way to flirt online. And it works.  

Several colleges have taken the initiative to design anonymous flirting websites inspired by sites like Craigslist’s Missed Connections, ISawYou.com, Lovetag.org, and Bump.com:

• Brown: spottedatbrown.com
• Harvard University: isawyouharvard.com
• Maryland: isawyoumaryland.com
• MIT: isawyou.mit.edu
• Pepperdine: isawyoupepperdine.com
• Rutgers: isawyourutgers.com
• St. Johns: isawyoustjohns.com
• Wellesley College: isawyouwellesley.wordpress.com
• Yale University: Good Crush

On the flirting sites, students anonymously describe the location on campus he or she saw a crush from afar and writes a short description about the person or the encounter. Each post tries to have enough clues so the person can figure out if he or she is being described, like gender, hair color, and clothing. Using personal names to describe the crush is usually discouraged to protect privacy and to prevent the posts from sounding like gossip, but students can “like,” comment on, or reply to the post to start a discussion.

LikeALittle has a very similar setup to these individual sites but is a national site that provides a template for any school that wants to have a branch (somewhat similar to format of the Her Campus branches, in fact). The website is a self-described “flirting-facilitator platform” that was started by Stanford graduate Evan Reas ‘09 in October 2009. Within a few short months it spread to over 450 colleges across America and Canada. All it takes is a few students from one college to send an email requesting a branch be created for their school, and they automatically become the Founding Members and a branch is immediately created.

One of the founders from the Bowdoin branch of LikeALittle, Daniel Jeong ’12, said he decided to start the website because he heard about it from friends at other schools and thought Bowdoin should get to be a part of the experience. “I thought it would be good for the school,” said Daniel, especially since it seems like Bowdoin students “are too shy” to initiate flirtations on their own.

Here are some examples of flirtations found on these websites:

Café  at Student Union: Brunette, Female. You stood in front of me in line, and we talked about both liking extra foam in our cappuccinos. I wish I had asked for your number.

Classroom 314 in Searles Hall: Blonde, Male. Tomorrow is our last day of class and I hope I finally pluck up the courage to talk to you, but I will probably get nervous and not say anything just like every other day. If only you knew how much seeing you makes my day.

Once you make a post, you get notified if someone comments on or “likes” your post, and you can privately message a user if you think you have identified your crush. On LikeALittle, each user gets randomly assigned fruit names like “Cucumber” or “Strawberry,” keeping the atmosphere playful and completely anonymous. LikeALittle has even added a chat similar to Facebook chat, where each user who is currently browsing the posts shows up as a fruit alias and you can message back and forth – increasing the chances of sparking romance right away.