12 Weird Things You Did For Crushes In The '90s

No matter what the numerical decade, people are always going to do dumb stuff when it comes to love, and especially when it comes to like. The early stages of infatuation, when you're crushing for someone hard and swooning every time you hear their name, really brings out a weird side of people. It's not a bad side necessarily, just one that can sometimes be creepy. And before putting cute pictures of yourself on Instagram and hoping you crush will "like" them was a thing, we did dumb things to get a crush's attention in the '90s. It wasn't as simple as the perfect duck face selfie back then. You had to actually really put yourself into some pretty compromising positions, and there was no delete button on them either.

Dating in the '90s was a lot different from what it's like now — hours spent on the phone, passing notes, and generally doing all sorts of cute stuff was necessary to connect. So in order to get a crush's attention, sometimes things got a bit silly. We've all been there, in the days before you could Google someone's name, trying to figure out what they like or where they hang out without any internet to guide us. Getting your crush's attention in the '90s was hard, sometimes. Here are some dumb things you probably did in the name of a crush.

1. Finding Out Their Favorite Band And Wearing The Band's T-Shirt

Remember when band t-shirts were super cool in the '90s? And remember trolling stores for that Green Day Dookie shirt, just so you could get your crush to notice you? I mean, Dookie was a great album, so you weren't being entirely dumb (although you probably didn't know that at the time, which makes the t-shirt dumb).

2. Calling Their (Home) Phone And Hanging Up

I've never been quite sure why we did this. We'd call, listen to them say "hello" a few times, then hang up without saying anything. It was attention getting, sure. But they didn't know who you were, other than an anonymous weirdo prank calling them.

3. Getting Your Friends Together And Driving Past Their House/Sports Field/School

Drive-bys are the '90s equivalent of social media stalking, although you never really got as much out of them as you were hoping. Generally you'd drive by a place your crush was and wouldn't even see them, so they wouldn't even know that you liked them enough to make the drive. So you were really just being a creep for no reason.

4. Listening To "Sexy" Music Loud Enough In Your Ear Buds That Everyone Else Could Hear It

If a song had swears or was about sex, you'd play it out of your Walkman so loud it was audible from you ear buds, and try to sit near your crush so they would hear how badass you were. Pretty much the most anti-social way to try and get someone's attention.

5. Saying Coy Things Like "I Can't Tell You Especially Who I Have A Crush On!"

If you were ever talking to your crush, and they asked you who you had a crush on (only after you suggesting you had a crush on someone in the first place), you'd try to be coy by saying you couldn't tell them, specifically. You thought you were getting their attention, but it's more likely the idiot just though you didn't want to tell them about someone else.

6. Telling The School Gossip About Your Crush But Acting Really Pained About Doing So

Swearing them to absolute secrecy, you'd tell the school gossip about your crush, knowing full well they'd go and blab even after you did a huge song and dance about them not telling anyone.

7. Dedicating A Song To Them On The Radio

Every time I did this I would do it at a time or on a radio station I knew my crush wouldn't be listening to. But I did it anyway. In the hopes of getting their attention. That I knew I wouldn't possibly get. Yeah, I was weird in the '90s.

8. Leaving Them Anonymous Notes

Again, you wanted their attention, but not too much of their attention, so you left them notes anonymously. Smart.

9. Getting Your Friends To Do The Talking For You

Of course if you were really serious about your crush in the '90s, you'd get your friends to tell them, and communicate back and forth between you, which is the least dumb way to get the attention of someone you like, obviously.

10. Trying To Find A Way To IM Them Without Making It Weird (Even Though Everything You Were Doing Was Weird)

You'd spend hours stressing about IM-ing them to get their attention. This was long before texting or Tindering or Snapchatting were things, remember. So communicating with people via the Internet was super weird. And you made it weirder by always opening with a weird dad joke, or highly contrived line that only made sense in your own head.

11. Pushing For Games Of Spin The Bottle That Included Them

For some reason you were so willing to risk kissing loads of other people you had no interest in on the off chance you might get to kiss your crush, and that they'd fall in love with you from that one smooch. Such is the power of the bottle spin.

12. Learning A Really "Cool" Dance To Do In Front Of Them

Cringe as you remember learning the steps to a dance (pre-existing or choreographed yourself, not sure which is worse), to do in front of your crush in the next dance floor situation in order to get their attention.

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