You have a crush. Yay! But none of your friends know them. Boo. You really wish you had twin telepathy or some sort of biotechnology that can display an image in your mind to a group. Ok, I guess that describes what a photo is, but the only picture you have is the one on myWhitman. Look no further, this guide will teach you the skills required to communicate your crush’s idiosyncrasies to your friends with just one teeny tiny headshot. 

If you’re lucky enough to know your crush’s full name, finding their picture should take no time. If you’re working with their first name, no worries, you’ll just need to briefly comb through your search returns. If you are cursed with the bad luck of having a crush on someone with the name Anna, Sam, or any variation of the name Madeleine/Madison/Madeline/Maddie, your search will likely take longer. Prepare adequately for this endeavor.  

Next, you’re going to perform a visual analysis. Back in the old days, you could tell how old your crush was by the blue of the Reid Campus Center backdrop. Nowadays, everyone can submit their own photo, revealing deeply personal insights. Consider some context clues you can use to develop your case for the crush: Lighting, pose, the emotion in their eyes. Pause for a moment to contemplate the circumstances of the photograph: Could the photographer be a parent, friend or ungrateful sibling? What you glean from this step frames the rest of the analysis. Do a thorough job. 

Finally, you’ll need to identify the strong points. You may even want to memorize them because your friends will attack the photo with merciless indifference. They may pick on the surface implications (bad haircut, forced smile, horrendous lighting, etc). Your job is to build it back up. The blue shirt suggests they’re a deep thinker, associating themselves with harmony and wisdom. The tree in the background? That’s actually because they believe humans share the Earth with all other forms of life, beautiful, right? 

With these three steps, you are sure to put up a valiant defense of what’s more often than not a ghastly picture of a very normal looking person. You may even convince your friends to see what you see! Far more likely though is that you’ll have very subtly communicated just how delusional you really are.