Exploring the Burned Haystack Dating Method
At age 50, Jennie Young decided to try online dating. However, after a series of negative experiences, she developed her own philosophy to finding Mr Right aka ‘the needle in the haystack’. Her strategy to find him was to burn down the haystack.
In a guest article for Huffington Post, Young shared that “all this picking through pieces of hay to find one needle was too tedious and it took too damn long”. She decided to ‘burn down the haystack’, or develop ways to quickly find compatible men when online dating.
She writes that she got “so strict” about her rules of who she would engage with, that her efforts were now solely focused on men who were aligned with her on key values.
Young went on to create a Facebook group called “Burned Haystack Dating Method” which now has more than 850 women on board. The group has 10 clear rules for online dating that help women ‘burn the haystack’.
These rules include:
- Only interact with messages that are well-written, reference profile details, and do something to keep the conversation flowing.
- Refusal to fight with men on apps if there is conflict. Instead of spending energy to put them in their place, simply block them.
- Block men if conversations are not leading towards an IRL meetup within a week or two, even if it’s going well.
Young writes that blocking matches is an effective strategy as it prevents dating apps from “recycling matches”. By blocking men, she writes that women are assured they will not encounter them again, meaning they will be provided a new set of men to interact with.
“Employing these tricks and others is paying off. We’re suddenly meeting men who are respectful and relationship-minded, and we’re actually going out on good dates”, she adds.
Beyond just developing these rules, the group also supports and advises one another. Made up of mainly women over 40, members use their own respective expertise, whether its data science, psychology, or law, to help each other with online dating issues.
The Burned Haystack Method “requires us to slow down, to be mindful, to be honest, and to be kind — both to the people we meet and to ourselves”, she concludes. “It also empowers us to be strong and self-protective in ways that are generative and healing”.
You can read Jennie Young’s full article here and find the Burned Haystack Dating Method Facebook Group here.