Life was simpler back in the day. Thanks to the then-primitive technology, we have become great at swabe moves in getting to know our crush, finding common connections to talk about, and ~coincidentally~ bumping into each other.

Here are 8 things we used to do to get noticed:

Telebabad late at night

Phone calls meant the world to us. We’d even guard the phone at times to make sure our parents don’t answer it for us or schedule a telebabad session when everyone’s gone to bed. When you and your crush have talked on the phone for so long, until past 12 midnight, it definitely had to mean something.

Friendster testimonials

Before “heart-ing” a profile photo, the old school, social media way at hinting that we like our friend is through a sweet testimonial. Aside from the few sentences we’ve thought about over and over, we used to make use of alpha-numeric characters to create cutesy images that’ll definitely add a special touch to our Friendster testi.

Y!M Stats

Remember when we used to post an emo stat, or a song of a lyric from a band we know our crush also listens to? Or a reaction from the latest episode of a TV show we know he or she likes, too? It’s all secretly hoping that it will start a message or a Buzz!, right?

This was what “conversation starters” were like before.

Passing notes in school

The feeling is just too strong to ignore even when the teacher’s right in front of us. We used to pass notes to show our kulit side and get his or her attention. It would be cute if we’d been caught, too, because it would then give our classmates to tease us together!

“Study groups”

We’d willingly spend time over at a friend’s house—especially this friend’s mom is such a hottie or she might have an attractive kuya.

Study groups were the perfect excuse to make our presence felt in the eyes of our desired other, and possibly even hang out together.

Regular text messages

Before we could Instagram story what we’ve eaten for breakfast, we used to text each other “Kumain ka na ba?” Because we’d be so hung up to keep the text conversation going, often times we’d find ourselves to be more madaldal through text but will be quiet and awkward in person.

School fairs

Especially for girls and boys studying in exclusive schools, school fairs were the much-awaited days to in a ~cool~ way and make papansin to our crush. If we were used to seeing them at the gates while picking up their sibling, now’s the opportunity to get caught with him or her in the marriage booth or even secretly dedicate a song!

Pa-bigay

The extremely shy or torpe would admire from a distance and send gifts or notes to a crush by looking for a messenger and make pa-bigay.

Sometimes, we are content with seeing them happy from afar and knowing that it’s because of our efforts—even when he or she has no idea who we are.

What was your strategy? Share them with us below!