It’s that time of the semester again.

In the flurry of assignments, tests, presentations and essays, I can’t decide which word describes this part of the year better: busy, frantic or ludicrous.

And yet, there’s always time for distractions.

Last week, just before everyone went home to dye eggs, eat chocolate bunnies and share Easter dinners, I came across a Facebook page in its infancy: Goshen Crushes.

What an interesting idea: an anonymous way to tell the world–or Goshen College, anyway–about your secret crush.  It even turns out we’re not the only Mennonite college to have such a page, thanks to Eastern Mennonite University.

But by the time a secret admirer professed their infatuation with Menno Simons, I realized this page had the potential to turn malignant, albeit entertaining.  Even in the first night of the Crushes page I saw posts shift from name-dropping into witty punchlines, to even replacing Menno Simons’ beard for Marshal Watson’s.

Going through the rest of the list, the posts become increasingly spicy and sometimes a little vulgar.  Sure, it makes for a very entertaining read, but perhaps not always in the best taste.  Then again, that’s half the fun of anonymity.

The Crushes site is, for now, harmless–and it always cracks me up to see a few faculty thrown up on the list.  Apparently, even the cafeteria staff aren’t immune to the yearnings of secret admirers.

But how far can this possibly go?  Another webpage that started shortly after the Crushes page, Goshen Confessions, was a place for users to anonymously broadcast their embarrassing or compromising experiences while at Goshen College.  The page must have crossed a line, though, since it was removed from Facebook.

I didn’t pay as much attention to it personally, but some of the stories I read on the Confessions page were certainly shocking in my opinion.  Everyone wants to tell their crazy college stories, but perhaps the removal of the Confessions page means that these stories are best saved for after college.

Are these pages dangerous?  Most likely not.  But just browsing from the beginning of the Crushes page through the list is enough to see a bit of a transformation in the page’s tone.  It isn’t harmful to the Goshen culture right now, but the potential is certainly present.

So, #14, Menno Simons, Please let me touch that sweet, sweet beard.

Or Marshal.