Academy-Specific Dating Pages on Facebook Take Off

What began as a national trend on college and high school campuses across the country has resulted in multiple complementary, anonymously-run Facebook pages bearing Phillips Exeter’s name. Pages include Phillips Exeter Compliments, Phillips Exeter EP, and a similar website, Exeter Crushes, all hoping to connect Exeter Students, romantically or otherwise. The latest, Phillips Exeter Match-Up, which was created on May 10, currently has 527 Facebook “friends,” roughly half of the student body.The anonymous creators advertised Phillips Exeter Match-Up as the equivalent of a schoolwide Tinder, a popular iPhone application used to meet people. For Match-Up, the concept is simple: the page acts as an intermediary between students who wish to contact those they are romantically interested in. In order to avoid the embarrassment of rejection in person, the admirer is encouraged to send a list of their “crushes” to the anonymous creators of Match-Up; if a person on their list also requested them, then the account gives them each other’s names. Facebook users are also notified when their name has appeared on someone else’s list.Ever since its launch date, the page has exploded, with nearly two thirds of the people who are friends with the page sending in their list of crushes. “We've had a bunch of matches,” one of the anonymous creators of the page said. “I'd guess around a third of people who have sent in a list have found a match with someone they were interested in.”The page, which was founded by one person, soon became too difficult to manage and required a team of several people. “Although we started as just one person, the page grew much more quickly than anticipated, requiring that we expand to a group of five in order to keep the page running smoothly,” an anonymous administrator of the page said.Even with more people involved, however, the page still demands  large amounts of work. “It’s a good deal of time commitment, about one hour each night,” one of the administrators of the page said.Phillips Exeter Match-Up is not the first page of its kind. Phillips Exeter Crushes, which joined Facebook early last December, has a different purpose but the same basic premise. Instead of matching up individuals, Crushes provides a place where people can send anonymous compliments to their friends or crushes. “Obviously it's not an original concept,” one of the page’s creators said. “We initially started it as a parody page and that's what it became.”Phillips Exeter Crushes has had to work through a few challenges to ensure that the page runs smoothly. “We definitely have had to filter a few sexual comments that have been sent in,” Crushes acknowledged. “Some people really like the idea of our page, and I've had someone praise me. No one has been negative yet, but it's a little sad when people send in prank crushes and stuff like that, because the page is genuinely here to brighten other people's days.”Like Match-Up, Crushes has had to expand to a group of more than one person, but requires less time than Match-Up does. “It isn’t a large time commitment, we just check on the page once in a while and copy and paste the appropriate messages. There are a lot of inappropriate messages, more so than actually genuine crushes and comments. We always make sure the crushes are nice and appropriate so the Academy doesn't have to get involved.”Another similar page is Phillips Exeter EP. Phillips Exeter EP implements the same basic concept as the Match-Up page, but it sets students up for EP rather than letting people who likes them. TTheir mission statement, as written in a post by the account, is: “Hello Exeter EP goers, this is a page for you to be set up for EP. If you are a lonely loser like me, message us and we will set you up! In the message, you may include some preferences but, not all can be accommodated. Stay golden.”Some people are appalled by the accounts and their message, especially the Phillips Exeter EP page, which officially declares Evening Prayer as a date night, as opposed to a spiritual ceremony to reflect and pray. The Academy’s Reverend, Robert Thompson, was already aware of the page and has mixed feelings towards it.“I have prayed for these people behind these pages and that their misunderstanding will be transformed, and that they will be surprised by the depth of understanding they receive, in spite of what they hope they are encouraging and the disrespect they are offering to those who come to EP for a more traditional and religious purpose,” Thompson said.Although Thompson was upset by the misuse of a spiritual ceremony, he acknowledged that these pages may sometimes be helpful. “If the anxiety in someone’s life is that they don’t have anyone and they have this sense of longing for someone, and they think they can be satisfied with someone, and Evening Prayer is a way that they’ve begun to address that feeling, then that’s good.”