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Has anyone ever actually hooked up using the Crushes page?

The crushes page is awash with hundreds of longing posts for that stranger in the library, but has any ‘love’ actually blossomed from it?


If you go to St Andrews, you probably follow the St Andrews crushes page. Before St Memedrews and St Feudrews, the University of St Andrews Crushes facebook page is the original, and most popular destination for anonymous online banter in The Bubble. Over the past few years, the University of St Andrews crushes page (now in its third iteration) has been a meme page, a tag group, and, most recently, a political battleground during the Rectorial elections.

But what about its stated main function? How many people have actually managed to hook up using the Crushes page?

To be fair, I have to declare an interest here. In the past couple of months, i've been tagged in and reffered to by posts on the Crushes page more than I would have thought possible, and yet i've been in a dry spell since before Fresher's week. You can't even accuse me of not having chased these up properly- i've liked, commented on and tagged every crush posted about me, and received nothing. (Can you tell i'm unhealthily desperate for sex? Because i'm unhealthily desperate for sex.)

But this isn't about me. It's about the student body of St Andrews. Over the past week or so, i've been trying to research if my experience is universal. Unofrtunately, it seems like it is.So far, i've only managed to find one person who's managed to hook up using it. Aside from that, the only one of my Facebook friends who seems even vaugely confident that it could work is someone who doesn't even go here.

I think that this is more or less conclusive proof, conducted under the most rigorous scientific conditions possible (I should maybe point out here that i'm an English student and haven't done science since I was 15), that the Crushes page is not fulfilling it's stated objective of bringing crushes together.

So where does this leave us? And what the hell was the point of doing this article? Can't really answer the second, but in answer to the first, it leaves us with a choice.

Either we can take this in our stride. The St Andrews crushes page as it currently stands isn't such a bad thing. It's a good source of entertainment, and, occaisionally, affirmation, and it probably makes a positive contribution to St Andrean life. And besides, if you remove me from the equation, most students here seem to be having quite a lot of sex anyway (a different investigation into this is pending).

Or we could demand better. We could rally behind the trade descriptions act, and then boycott the Crushes page, refuse to give them the clicks they require until they help get us laid. (How would this work? Good question.)

Personally, i'd be find with either option. The first is pretty low-effort, and leaves us no worse off. The second…well, at least it'll let me work out how many other St Andreans are as bone-headedly desperate as me.