How Many People Are Secretly Crushing on You Right Now?
Answer seven flirty questions and we'll count the admirers you never noticed collecting.
Right now, at least one person is replaying something you said last week and smiling at their ceiling. The question was never whether you have admirers — it's how many, and how badly you've been underestimating the total.
This is not science; it is the arithmetic of charm, conducted by a quiz that adores you. Tell the truth about your texting, your eye contact, and your laugh, and I will hand you a headcount you can quietly brag about. Round up when in doubt. The universe does.
Read every possible result and what it means →
Inspect the scoring, question by question
The highest possible score here is 21. The original game divides scores into 4 bands; the bands contain different numbers of answer combinations. A high point total is not a measured percentile.
1. Someone holds eye contact with you a beat too long. What happens inside your head?
- I smile back, then think about it all afternoon — 2 original points
- I assume I have something on my face — 1 original points
- Nothing new — I hold it and smile, this is my sport — 3 original points
- Eye contact? I was busy looking at my shoes — 0 original points
These are the archived game’s option weights. Partial credit is a game rule, not a clinical or population measurement.
2. How fast do people reply to your texts?
- My messages marinate for days — 0 original points
- Instantly, often with three follow-up questions — 3 original points
- Normal speed, normal words — 1 original points
- Pretty fast, with a suspicious number of exclamation points — 2 original points
These are the archived game’s option weights. Partial credit is a game rule, not a clinical or population measurement.
3. Pick the compliment you hear most often.
- 'You're so easy to talk to' — 1 original points
- 'You have such good energy' — 2 original points
- 'You're... reliable,' said warmly — 0 original points
- 'How are you still single?' delivered with genuine outrage — 3 original points
These are the archived game’s option weights. Partial credit is a game rule, not a clinical or population measurement.
4. Your laugh escapes in a quiet room. Consequences?
- Heads turn, and at least one keeps looking — 3 original points
- One friend joins in out of loyalty — 1 original points
- People smile without knowing why — 2 original points
- I laugh silently, like a polite ninja — 0 original points
These are the archived game’s option weights. Partial credit is a game rule, not a clinical or population measurement.
5. A new person joins your class, job, or friend group. One week later, they...
- wave at me in hallways, which is nice — 1 original points
- may not have registered that I exist yet — 0 original points
- know my coffee order and laugh at everything I say — 3 original points
- have invented three excuses to sit near me — 2 original points
These are the archived game’s option weights. Partial credit is a game rule, not a clinical or population measurement.
6. How often do you catch someone looking at you, then glancing away fast?
- Sometimes, and it ruins my focus every time — 2 original points
- Weekly. It's basically a scheduled event — 3 original points
- Never, though to be fair I rarely look up — 0 original points
- Once or twice, probably coincidence — 1 original points
These are the archived game’s option weights. Partial credit is a game rule, not a clinical or population measurement.
7. Be honest: when you dress up, what happens?
- I feel amazing, and that is the entire audience — 0 original points
- A friend says I look 'different, in a good way' — 1 original points
- My phone gets loud and stays loud — 3 original points
- At least two compliments land before lunch — 2 original points
These are the archived game’s option weights. Partial credit is a game rule, not a clinical or population measurement.
What happens across every possible answer pattern?
We counted all 16,384 patterns, treating each offered choice as equally likely. This is a synthetic rule check, not visitor research. It does not describe how real people answer.
| Result | Patterns | Share of patterns |
|---|---|---|
| One Devoted Admirer | 323 | 1.97% |
| Two or Three, and Climbing | 7,869 | 48.03% |
| A Solid Five, Minimum | 7,456 | 45.51% |
| Seven-Plus: A Walking Rom-Com | 736 | 4.49% |
Download the full counts · Download Python script · Download rule inputs
To reproduce locally: python3 measure_legacy.py --input legacy-rule-inputs.json --output counts.json. Uses Python 3 and its standard library.
Nobody reads romantic signals as well as they think
Counting your admirers presumes you can detect admiration, and the evidence on that is humbling. Studies of perceived romantic interest keep producing errors that are both large and oddly patterned by sex: men tend to over-read plain friendliness as attraction, while women more often fail to register interest that is genuinely present.
Martie Haselton and David Buss accounted for the pattern with error management theory. Their argument runs like this: when a judgement can fail in two directions and the two failures carry unequal costs, the mind does not aim for accuracy at all. It settles wherever the cheaper mistake lies, in the same spirit as a smoke alarm calibrated to be irritating rather than silent. Missing a real chance and inventing an imaginary one are not equivalent losses, so the bias parks at different points for different people.
The practical consequence is that your private headcount is produced by a noisy instrument. You are probably overlooking somebody. You may also be counting a colleague who is simply courteous to everyone in the building. Both mistakes are entirely ordinary, and neither reflects badly on you.
Why the counting itself feels so good
There is a decent reason a headcount is enjoyable, and Thomas Wills set out part of it in 1981 when he made the case for downward social comparison. His observation was that people shore up a wobbling self-image by measuring themselves against someone faring worse, and more generally by reaching for whichever comparison flatters. A page that hands you a number of admirers is a small, harmless piece of the same machinery: it invites you to compare today's version of yourself with one who has fewer.
There is nothing wrong with the lift, provided you know what you have bought. The figure is generated entirely from answers you supplied, which makes it closer to a mood reading than to a census. Nobody has polled your acquaintances, and no page can.
To get something real out of it, treat the number as scenery and the memory as the product. Whose face turned up while you were reading the questions? That is the genuine output here, and it is the sort of information you can act on, usually by asking one direct question rather than leaving several hints.
Reading context & limits
For background and a fuller source trail, read How Friendship Actually Works. These references provide context; they do not validate the entertainment result or every historical detail in the archived essay.
- Lindenfors, Wartel & Lind, 'Dunbar's number deconstructed' — Biology Letters
- Dunbar, 'Structure and function in human and primate social networks' — Proceedings of the Royal Society A
Content lead: LISA. Updated October 25, 2026. Send a specific factual correction.