Love actually

“Duke Crushes,” an exciting new gig soliciting anonymous romantic proclamations, is gaining popularity on Facebook. Individuals write anonymous notes, which get published on the profile’s wall. Reading “Duke Crushes” gave me a lot of food for thought on the ways in which we express love and perceive love proclamations in our community.

Anonymity gives us the audacity to say things that would otherwise make us uncomfortable and alleviates responsibility for our actions. Anonymity works like this in statements of opinion: Positioning oneself vis-à-vis something, as an action, expresses identity in a very different way than revealing one’s emotions. Statements of love carry this “expressive” weight primarily in themselves. In the views versus feelings framework in which we like to operate, our embrace of anonymity when it comes to feelings must have deeper causes than social conformism.

Those who remember College ACB will likely agree that the name-dropping there was hardly more than part of a generalizing ephemeral babble (e.g., “coolest frat bros”). But the notes on “Duke Crushes” are actual messages intended to reach the recipient. And thus, our reluctance to reveal ourselves betrays a deeply impersonal social climate that discourages people from revealing the truest and most intrinsic parts of their personalities. Perhaps the online megaphones provided by social media make us more opinionated but not any less shy, exacerbating our tendency to compartmentalize ourselves, hiding our “true” selves in the basement while happily exporting our positions and stances. In comparison to our parents’ generation, we’re more courageous in arguing our points, bolder in utilizing appearance and exploring sexuality. But are we braver?

I’d like to see an inverse system of “Duke Crushes” put to test—where, instead of anonymous love to known recipients, we sign our expressions of love to undisclosed addresses. It would make an interesting emotional exercise. Perhaps it could help us realize that the kind of courage love asks of us is not to confront another, but to face oneself. And thus, as ice-breakers go, I should conclude this proposal with a personal note to my crush: I am hopelessly in love with you and have been since I met you freshmen year, and every time I see you I fall in love again.

Fedja Pavlovic

Trinity ’15