Ross’ Rants: No secret frustrations

This is a rant I’ve been putting off for a while, because this will, likely, be the piece that ensures that hordes of anonymous people are thinking bad thoughts about me.

A new page on Facebook popped up into the life Mount Royal University students in Feb. 2013 — and has grabbed hold of the simple-minded folk ever since. A home for the mysterious, the elusive and most of all — the cowardly, MRU Confessions is what has everyone talking, or typing away from behind their keyboards.

The page, run by “Admin 1” and “Admin 2”, was a great idea in concept. There are likely thousands of stories that are worth sharing every year at MRU, and this could have been a great forum to share those.

Instead, day in and day out we are constantly hearing about the page in our classes, at the Hub and in “Wykeham”, as it is so often referred to. What for? For essentially being half a dating site — I say half because for everyone that gets named or even referred to — there’s someone else who wishes something would happen, but would rather just let campus know that someone out there wishes something would happen in regards to the “brown girl with long black hair” seen somewhere.

Do you remember when you were in middle school and you were going through that awkward phase called puberty? Most adults try and pretend as it never happened to them, but see if any of this sounds familiar: You might fancy a classmate, but instead of doing anything about it, you go through a friend as some sort of proxy to maybe get the word out there because you’re feeling vulnerable and don’t want to give any chance for your feelings to get hurt.

This may be a tad hyperbolic, but this is what we imagine most anonymous confessors look like. Photo: Nathan Ross

MRU Confessions is coddling post-secondary students to stop taking risks, and it is pages like it that have the folks of Generation X shaking their heads at the soft, sensitive millennial.

A lot of great things have come out of that page. Several of the commenters use it as a great forum for their humour and it has undoubtedly brought folks from across campus together by using a common ground on social media. Not only that, but if the line between creepy/stalker isn’t crossed, it can be a major self-esteem boost to students (similar to that of University of Calgary’s compliments page.)

It has also has been a great boost for The Hub, which is deserved because that seems to be the main place the staff gets recognized for putting up with us unruly campus students, and a happy Hub is a Hub I like to drink at.

However, for those of you typing away at that site weekly or monthly asking for a date or looking to cure your boredom, stop blindly poking away at the internet and please spare us. You’re only really providing fodder for the commenters, and you’re regressing actual interactions to the point where it’s becoming increasingly difficult to actually meet new people on campus.

If you’re going to comment about how you shot off a load into your roommate’s shampoo in some weird prank, go ahead and stay anonymous. If you’re just looking to have some interaction with other people — you might want to consider just shutting down that computer and enjoying having so many like-minded people around you while you still can.