‘Spotted and spoken on Marijkeweg. Last Friday at approx. 14.00, I was looking for an address, and I think you were taking your garbage out. I asked you how to find my destination, unfortunately I forgot to ask your number. Dark blond and brown eyes. I would love to get in touch. ‘ An attractive fellow student catches your eye on your way to campus. You’re already a bit late for your meeting so you hurry on, but the encounter lingers in your memory. Who was it?
The instagram account Gespot | WageningenUR is keen to help you find out. The concept is simple: you send in a description of the person you are looking for, they share it on instagram and the Wageningen community helps you look. Found the person? Pluck up courage and send a message.
‘We came up with the idea over a few drinks,’ say the makers of the account, two students who prefer to remain anonymous. ‘It’s not a unique idea of course, but to our astonishment there was nothing like it in Wageningen yet.’
No parties
The account was created in April 2019 but has only been really active for a couple of weeks. ‘Covid-19 makes it hard to meet people. There are no parties and not many classes at the uni. So this was the right moment to give this account more attention.’
The idea proved a great success and the number of followers rapidly grew to around 2000. ‘More and more requests are coming in. We share the descriptions, send on any tip-offs, and let followers know through our stories if the right person gets identified.’
Within a day
Have many new love affairs blossomed already? ‘We haven’t been doing it for long and there haven’t been many matches yet. We found the person in question within a day in five cases.’ But the account holders have no idea what happens next. ‘It’s all anonymous, and it’s up to the people themselves to get in touch. All we do is make sure they can find the right person. We are planning to follow matches up after a few weeks, because we are very curious ourselves whether nice new relationships come out of it.’
Click here to help search, or to send in a description of your secret crush.
