Hmm
Actually, thinking about the “quite mysterious” post below… if you don’t know what these sites (eg: ECrush & Pimpin’ Cupid) are, they allow you to list who you have a crush on. The target of your affection/stalking gets an anonymous e-mail saying they have an anonymous admirer, but of course, don’t know who. Instead, they have to go to the site and list who they have a crush on. The flaw lies in the fact that they are, more likely, going to list who they think has the crush on them (as opposed to who they have a crush on). If one of the listed e-mail addresses matches, then the site sends both parties a “you’ve been matched” e-mail. The idea of those sites seems quite appealing at first – anonymity. But they don’t account for something else – curiousity. Chances are, when someone is matched, they are going to list a whole bunch of people and when they match you, it’s not necessarily cause they like you as well (as is the site’s intention), but because they want to find out who you are. Of course, inadvertently, they also end up sending an “I’m interested in you” anonymous email to everyone else they thought had a crush and the cycle continues (most likely, they are so curious they don’t think this far ahead).
There is another interesting way to approach this (whether you are targetting someone, or have been targetted). Set up a dud email account you can check (hotmail or otherwise) and use that. Your “target” gets curious, does the check thing (or may ignore the e-mail entirely), and you might end up with an e-mail in your “real” mailbox saying someone has a crush on you. However, this time, you haven’t initiated the contact sequence (not with your real e-mail address, anyhow) and have maintained anonymity at the expense of theirs.
Another strategy – list someone, immediately remove them. When they list you, you get the “first” e-mail, onus is on them. (I don’t know if, when you remove them, they get a mail saying “you got removed”, though).
But of course these things aren’t serious, and really shouldn’t be taken so. If anything, they are insidious gossip generators :)
12:30am (GMT +10.00) tomorrow 
