
I fell in love with a girl, so I built a web app to dedicate to her. - t3mp3st
http://cupidco.de/
======
t3mp3st
I fell head over heals for a girl. I thought about her way too often, missed
her way more than a normal person ought to, and was pretty much in a constant
state of love-induced sugar shock. I didn't want to seem overzealous or
desperate, so I tried to play it cool -- and yet, the impulse to post
embarrassing, saccharine love quotes to Facebook was overwhelming (I am but
only a dork, after all).

So I did what any self-respecting geek would do in my position: I computed a
SHA-2 hash of her name and put it in that weird little box thingy on the left
hand side of my Facebook profile. It provided just the right balance of self
expression and social tact. I was happy.

I liked the idea so much that I decided I would wrap it in a small application
and dedicate it to the object of my dorkitude. As I knew it would take a few
weeks to flesh out and things were (shockingly) starting to work out between
this lovely individual and myself, I thought that the final product might make
for a cute little way of sharing my feelings. The idea of tiny "cupidcode"
links spreading across facebook and the twitters -- each rooted in my nerdy
affection for this particular young lady -- seemed like a terribly powerful
way to say "I really think you're great". And because I suck at music and
writing, it was pretty much my only option.

Fast forward a few weeks, and cupidco.de is done. It's probably not well
suited for the sorts of folks that read YC so I hope you don't mind me sharing
my link with you. My hope is that this post will kick-start the spread of a
few cupidcodes 'cross the nets so that my crush (who I've been seeing now for
about two weeks!) may casually stumble upon one while checking her facebook or
reading a blog and discover just how special she is to me.

tl;dr -- fell in love with a chick, wanted to do something special for her,
suck at everything else, so I built her a webapp.

~~~
chasingsparks
Everything about this project was meta-interesting. I feel like someone could
write a very entertaining NYT piece about this project. If this was not posted
on HN, I would think the narrative was bogus. However, being posted on HN, I
doubt you are feigning hopeless romanticism.

P.S. I am half-convinced XKCD started for a similar reason.
<http://xkcd.com/55/>

~~~
t3mp3st
I'm flattered that you think that! As embarrassing as it is, I'm really as
dorky as described.

~~~
chasingsparks
I once bought a girl I was semi-obsessed a six-volume set of a series about
WWI published three years after WWI. She was a FP nut, so I thought it was
cool. I did so even though I knew she was taking a plane the next day. I even
wrote a good essay length inscription, informing her that she was awesome.

Sometimes, it's fun to say f*ck rationality. Good luck to you, sir.

~~~
mcantor
Did it work? Was she touched?

~~~
chasingsparks
Yet to be determined.

------
kirubakaran
Just philosophizing here... Falling head over heels for a girl without knowing
if it will be reciprocated is not much unlike building a beautiful webapp
without a concrete business model planned yet.

All the best on both.

~~~
t3mp3st
You, sir/madam, have been quoted. I'll throw that one up on the about page
later tonight.

------
dailo10
About a year ago, I wrote an iPhone app to propose to my girlfriend. She told
me that she didn't want a ring so I had to come up with something unique. It
worked -- we got married 3 months ago! :)

------
nickmolnar2
I did something similar once...just with a less happy ending. This girl had a
dream to be a guest on Oprah, and had an idea for a mobile app that just might
get her there. I was in love with her and thought that it would be a very
thoughtful Christmas present to make the app for her. She was a designer, so
she just had to style it and launch.

I built the app over a few weeks by sleeping an hour less each night,
ultimately giving it to her for Christmas. She loved it. Unfortunately, things
went way off course between the two of us. I don't think the grand gesture
helped. It's a lot of pressure to put on a person.

If I had to do it over again, I probably would, but I sure as hell wouldn't
have let her go at the end.

We don't talk anymore and she has let the project go. C'est la vie.

~~~
t3mp3st
I'm really sorry to hear that :( I hope that this isn't too grand a gesture
though I'd be very excited were it to become one! Computer hackery is how I've
always "expressed" myself. I didn't really know else how to do something extra
special for her than to code up something sweet and so I went with my gut.
That stinks that things soured between you two :(

------
thorax
I'm sure you're not like this, but there's a worry to keep in mind as users of
such an app:

There was a meme app like this that went around on LiveJournal a few years
ago. It seemed all cool and sweet, but they announced a few months later that
they'd let you come back and pay them $5 to see what the crushes actually
were.

Lots of people paid to see who had crushes on them. I'm sure they made a
killing.

In this case, imagine rampant capitalism, and that people who visit the link
(who aren't the submitting IP) get to see a "Shhhh: Pay $10 to see who this
person has a crush on."

In theory, from a technical perspective, it may not be stored on the back-end,
but you have to trust t3mp3st isn't storing the actual names.

~~~
t3mp3st
There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that I would ever do this whatsoever. That's so
sleazy. I'm not looking to exploit people -- just to channel my cheesiness
into something productive and possibly make my own crush (cupidco.de/a) smile
:)

------
dabent
Guess my crush!

<http://cupidco.de/07>

~~~
jimmyjim
That makes the two of us.

I think, however, that he is already married.

------
tesseract
Your story is cool and all, but I'm a bit confused about your app. Normally
the selling point of crush-management webapps (over the alternative, i.e.
'just effing tell the person already') is that your crush won't be revealed
unless they indicate, on their own, that the feeling is mutual. With
cupidcodes there's essentially no secrecy, because anyone who visits a
cupidcode page can just type in their own name and see if it's them. Or,
honestly, someone could just try all of the code-maker's Facebook friends and
at 10 guesses a day it would take a few weeks at most to crack the code. Is
there some other social problem this solves that I'm not thinking of?

~~~
stevejohnson
The site's intention seems to be that you don't want it to be an impenetrable
secret, and you wouldn't really mind if your crush typed his/her name in and
found out.

------
dkokelley
I love the design. (Lovebirds on the computer - awesome). The process was
confusing to me. I didn't know what the goal was. I used descriptions from
here to figure it out.

I would emphasize the flirting component more. It's a great idea: send a flirt
anonymously, with your own code, and then you can safely see if the feelings
are mutual.

~~~
t3mp3st
I wasn't sure which would be more fun. I decided to just post things as is and
then evolve as people started giving me feedback. Speaking of which, thanks
for your suggestion!

------
asnyder
When I saw this post earlier today I initially didn't know what to make of it.
So I decided to ask my girlfriend what she thought of it.

She said "why doesn't he just tell her?", Thus, we clearly don't understand
the purpose of the application. She said "it seems pointless".

------
NathanKP
What a brilliant idea. This has already ben said in another comment but I have
to say that I'm impressed with the no login system.

You just need to make sure there is still a way to see what is happening if
you clear the cookie cache.

------
dpcan
The "secret page" needs to say the name of the person I have a secret crush on
so I remember who it was when I created it. I mean, if it's not the current
Maxim cover girl, then I may forget.

~~~
t3mp3st
too true :P I'm working on a bit.ly-esque "your recent cupidco.des" list
that'll help you keep track of your most recent (per-computer) codes. I'll
also throw the name up on the monitoring page, too, for good measure.

------
ideamonk
Cool!

Once I had written some javascript to encrypt/decrypt mails between me and my
girlfriend...

Brandon, Andre and Sharon might get a lot of spam soon, they should avoid
email addresses as plaintext in the source.

Just an advice.

------
kalendae
you need to work your headline/story here into your site somehow.

------
d0mine
I don't know whether it is by design but it answers: "You've cracked the
cupidcode" almost for any input.

edit: Oh, I see: "The system will tolerate names within an edit-distance of
2,"

------
zvikara
Great idea. What did you built it with?

