When it comes to Baylor relationships and finding love on a college campus, BU Crushes hopes to be the ultimate matchmaker.
BU Crushes is a Facebook page that acts as a way to connect Baylor students, through anonymous submissions, with people messaging the account about another student they notice on campus or would like to get to know better. BU Crushes then posts the submission on the page with the hope that the admired individual will notice.
The account began in 2013 when Facebook was the dominant form of social media among young people and was founded by a few Baylor students. A founder of BU Crushes and a 2018 Baylor grad (Referred to in this article as John Smith in an effort to maintain the anonymity of his page) sees the account as a way to bring people together, especially since the page started at a time when other forms of social media were nonexistent.
“Back then, Instagram didn’t play such a huge role in social media, and Facebook was the number one platform,” Smith said. “We wanted to offer something to get the people of Baylor together — not everyone has the courage of coming straight up to somebody and talking to them, so we thought it’d be a good idea to help those people out by giving them a chance to let their crush know somebody likes them. Sometimes you just see a person for a few moments, and it’s hard to make contact without coming off in the wrong way.”
BU Crushes has gained a significant following over the years, with hundreds of students submitting anonymous notes since 2013 to express their love for a fellow student or even just in the hopes of getting to know someone better or asking someone to coffee.
“The page is actually pretty simple — if you see somebody on campus, even if it’s just a glimpse, you send your best possible description of that person to us and why you like them,” Smith said. “Then we’ll publish it on our platform. Whether you don’t know the person but would like to find out who he or she is or you want to give your crush a shout out, we like to share in your experience. At the moment, we have over 6,000 people liking our page, and we act as a mediator between our followers.”
Smith enjoys BU Crushes for its ability to connect students together in a safe and anonymous way, especially at a campus like Baylor with 16,787 students.
“It gives a chance for the more timid people to speak up and eventually find their person. What’s always pretty funny is when somebody sends in a description about a person you actually know, but you can’t exactly tell them who it is because that would go against our guidelines,” Smith said. “Baylor has small enough of a population to connect with one another, but is also big enough that some of our paths don’t cross often, which leaves a little mystery.”
BU Crushes has a goal of connecting students together, but does the page have any success stories? Not only has the page created real-life relationships, but the bond formed between Baylor grads Micah and Haley Wolters through the page ended up leading to marriage.
Micah and Haley Wolters met under unusual circumstances in 2014, but they formed a special connection. The two were able to find and reach out to each other through BU Crushes.
“We met driving down the highway on I-35 going south toward Baylor on Nov. 30, 2014 — we were both coming back from Thanksgiving break,” Haley Wolters said. “We both got caught in traffic, and Micah kept looking at me and smiling — I looked over, and he made the sign for “I heart you” with his hands and drives off. Long story short, I caught up with him and signed it back to him. We waved goodbye and when we exited for Baylor, we both had stickers on our trucks that said we go to Baylor, but we went different directions. We both posted on BU Crushes hoping the other person would see it and the next morning, we both did.”
The day after the two met on the highway, Micah Wolters posted a message on the page hoping that Haley Wolters would spot it, just to find out that Haley Wolters had posted a message for him as well.
“To the girl driving the red Toyota Tacoma with the ‘I Heart Baylor’ sticker on the back, thank you for making the trip a little less terrible,” Micah’s original Facebook message said. “I would get stuck in traffic every day if it meant seeing you in the car next to me. I would love to meet you and have a good laugh over that — just comment on here and I’ll message you — the guy in the white Ford Ranger.”
Haley Wolters unknowingly posted a similar message around the same time as Micah Wolters with the goal of reaching out and connecting to him.
“To the attractive man driving the white truck down 35 tonight, your smile is captivating. It was adorable how you made those hearts with your hands and kept smiling at me,” Haley Wolter’s message said. “If we weren’t both going 60ish mph, I would have rolled down my window and actually spoken to you. But since we were and that would have been a very windy, hi and you’re cute — the girl in the red truck.”
Micah and Haley Wolters spotted each other’s Facebook messages, and the two were able to immediately connect. Now, the couple is married with a 10-month-old daughter named Penelope — a true BU Crushes success story.
“We were inseparable after meeting the next day — we had a bet that whoever’s post got the most likes had to pay for a coffee date the next day,” Haley said. “We started officially dating two weeks after meeting, got engaged the following November in 2015 and got married June 3, 2016. We had a baby girl this past November and now live in Arlington.”
Haley Wolters sees BU Crushes as an exciting way to get to know your potential soulmate and said that she and Micah Wolters plan to continue staying connected to Baylor.
“I love how fun it makes crushing on someone — a lot of times, you are too afraid to approach someone, so it’s fun to let them know in secret how you feel,” Haley Wolters said. “We come and visit Baylor often. It played such a huge role because that’s where we both met, got started in our lives and developed friendships and relationships.”
Smith said that despite many of the original founders having graduated, new admins will hopefully continue to build the page and expand it in the future.
“Though many of the original admins have graduated, we just got an awesome new admin who is working to build the page for the current student body — we also welcome applications if current students are interested,” Smith said. “The page is expected to grow in the future, and we are excited to see the potential new relationships that can form from our page.”
