Two people have given the Ball State community an anonymous outlet for users to show how exactly they feel about anyone.
Since the creation of the Ball State Secret Admirer’s Facebook page on March 26, the page has grown to about 6,200 likes. Every day, there is a multitude of posts, spreading crushes and admirations around campus.
The Secret Admirer administrators, who will only reveal that they are two men, said they started the page after seeing Indiana University’s similar page. They did not, however, imagine the page would take off so much in only a week.
“It feels incredible; we did not really know what to expect, but we certainly didn’t expect it to be this big,” the administrators said in an interview via Facebook message. “[It has probably gotten so much popularity] because it is something new, and it’s interesting.”
The administrators said they receive around 500 posts each day and try to submit 85 percent of them, spending much of their free time posting.
The posts range from direct admirations with the person’s name, to call-outs to random people seen on campus, to posts of appreciation, to certain groups like military service personnel.
“Administrators: Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity. This site makes my day,” said an admirer who referred to themselves as “A Former Skeptic.”
Some who receive posts of admiration choose to write back, like freshmen art education major Ashley Sharp.
Sharp received an admiration addressed directly to her and was curious, so she posted back to her admirer, who went by “You’ll Never Know,” asking them to send her a private message with their identity. The admirer has not yet contacted her.
“At first I thought it was one of my friends just to make me feel better, but I asked all of them and they said they didn’t do it, so I was like ‘Oh my gosh,’ this might actually be real,” Sharp said. “It made me feel really special, it was cool.”
Because she had already liked the page and loved reading the posts, Sharp decided to write back to her admirer — she is open to meeting and hanging out with them.
“If I wrote that about someone I would want them to say something,” she said. “It’s kind of reassuring if you like someone to know they want to hang out with you. I’m not a scary person, so they shouldn’t be scared to say anything to me.”
The page administrators said they have seen about five posts from people who met with their secret admirer, telling the community about their budding romances.
One page user referred to as “He May Actually Get the Girl” wrote, “My secret admirer just told me who they were and I let him kiss me goodnight after I spent two hours stuttering when I found out. We’ll see where it goes.”
The post received 215 likes. “He May Actually Get the Girl” could not be reached by the Daily News.
Sophomore vocal performance major Ganson Salmon chose to write back to his secret admirer and ask who they are, but he said he would rather have a face-to-face conversation than an anonymous compliment on the Internet.
“The people who don’t get much love outside spend a lot of time on the page waiting for a compliment, and those that do get comments have the opportunity to find out who sent the admiration and make a new friend,” he said. “People eat up this stuff [because] they can’t tell who it is and outside of the Internet it’s taboo [to directly compliment someone].”
Regardless of whether any posts turn into real relationships, the administrators said they think their page has contributed to more positive feelings around campus.
“We have personally witnessed more doors being held open, more friendly looks and overall more happiness around campus,” they said. “It makes it feel good, to see this page making a difference.”
Sharp agrees and said she did not realize how much people pay attention to each other.
“People are starting to dress nicer and look more presentable because they know people will be staring at them,” Sharp said. “The page is really awesome because you know the amount of love on the campus is insane.”
