At some point in your life, there was probably someone you thought was cute, but you couldn’t possibly tell him unless you were sure he liked you too.
Now Facebook wants to act as the online equivalent of asking a friend to figure out if another friend likes you back. At least that seems to be the idea of Secret Crush, a new service the company announced on Tuesday that will be added to Facebook Dating.
The app is pretty simple. Once you sign up for Facebook Dating, you can pick up to nine friends to list as “crushes.” If one of the people who you list has also listed you, then you will both get a notification. But if someone lists you and you don’t list them, you’ll get a notification that “a friend added you as a secret crush,” but you won’t be able to see who it is.
It all sounds very middle school. Whatever happened to the straightforward path to romance of just asking someone out for drinks? But thanks to spending too much time online, the whole idea of talking to people in real life is a challenge. And if this brings people together and builds lasting relationships, that’s not a bad thing.
The real question for would-be Secret Crush users, though, is this: Do you really want to trust Facebook, likely facing upwards of $3 billion in fines for privacy violations, to be your wingman or wingwoman? Sure, friends might gossip about your crush after you enlist their real-life help, but at least they, hopefully, won’t put that information up for sale or unscrupulously leak it to third parties.
Like most things, you’re probably better off trusting real people rather than the algorithm. And besides, your friends will likely give you advice, whereas Facebook only wants your data.
