I was wandering through the Arbor yesterday afternoon, headphones on, *NSYNC* blasting, when I heard a teeny voice offer me something. Oooh, free stuff. I tore a headphone off and looked at the guy.

“What’s that?” I asked him.

“Do you want a free bracelet?”

Do I want a free bracelet? Duh. Do I want a free anything? Duh. Yes. I figured it’d be for cancer or kids in Africa or maybe Dennis Kucinich trying to make a comeback via rubber bracelets. I turned the bracelet over in its plastic baggie. It was multicolored-oh, pink, blue, and black! I liked this already. It came with a little flyer in the baggie, and because it was all folded up, I could only just make out the title on the flyer.

BumpIntoLove.com, it said in blue, pink and black. I giggled to myself. Oh, heavens, this is some sort of dating service. Excellent. I dashed to the Ellison Hall computer lab and hopped on to the site. I hesitated a little bit. Hey, I’ve got a reputation to maintain here; what would people think if they caught Nicki of Nicki’s Nifty News on a cheap dating site? (Ha, if only I could be so popular.)

Whatever. I went to the site. Here’s the basic idea: You and that cute guy across the room share a quick glance. Then you smile at each other. Then you sort of coyly bite your lip like you don’t even notice you’re doing it. Yeah, you’re sneaky. Then both of you are too shy to say anything, so the flame fizzles. Or does it?! Enter BumpIntoLove.com. You sign up and check your messages to see if that hottie wrote you a message. He doesn’t have to know your name; he just enters the exact time and date of the encounter. Then *bam*, match made in heaven. Perfection.

Wait, there’s a catch. You have to pay 99 cents to see the message. And you have to pay 99 cents to write a message. Why is this better than craigslist missed connections again? (BTW, in case you were wondering, craigslist isn’t tossin’ me dolla dolla bills to plug it so often… I’m just so addicted I can’t stop talking about it.)

I did this dance when I was a junior in high school. Awesome times.