If You See This In An Online Dating Profile, Hit ‘Block’ Immediately — 'It's A Boundary Violation'
Online dating is a nightmare.
The apps are teeming with fake profiles, empty promises and habitual ghosters, which makes trying to find someone who is actually serious about connecting — let alone a quality match — next to impossible.
So how do we partner up someone who is worthy of our amazingness? And what are some red flags that signal we should immediately hit the block button?
That’s what we — Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, the hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast — asked Jennie Young, the creator of the Burned Haystack Dating Method, when she recently stopped by our studio to share her secrets for successful online dating.
Listen to the full episode by pressing play:
Young, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, used her background in rhetoric to create her unique and wildly popular approach to dating, which is also rooted in feminist theory in 2023.
“The metaphor is that if you’re looking for a needle in a haystack, which is what everybody’s doing on the dating apps, you don’t really want to spend your life picking through every single piece of hay — that’s not only frustrating and demoralizing, but it’s just a waste of time,” Young told us. “The most efficient way to find a needle in a haystack in real life is to burn the haystack to the ground, and you just find the needles because metal doesn’t burn. So we apply that same principle to using the dating apps.”
Over 135,000 women and nonbinary people have joined Young’s program since she launched it on Facebook last year, and countless testimonials on the page tout its life-changing dating strategies.
One of the most popular tenants of the Burned Haystack Dating Method is “block to burn,” which urges users to block every profile that isn’t a match.
“The apps will recycle people to you if you just swipe left,” she explained. “So you have to kind of take matters into your own hands and control that algorithm and block them.”
Young sees finding a match as less of a targeted search for viable candidates and more of a “process of elimination.”
“[Using Burned Haystack], you’re not going through Hinge or Bumble or whatever trying to find your perfect person. Your goal is to rule people out to burn that haystack, which then allows those needles to naturally emerge.”
One of the biggest red flags that Young said should immediately earn a potential suitor a block is if they’re lying about their age.
“Men lie about their age because they want to meet younger women — and they don’t want to get disqualified,” she told us.
That doesn’t bode well for a burgeoning relationship.
“It’s not just a lie, it’s a boundary violation,” Young said. “Because now, you know, let’s say there’s a woman who’s ... 30 years old and she’s set her age parameters from 29 to 39. The 49-year-old guy who comes in lying is not only lying to her, but has already decided that it’s OK to violate that boundary, which she has clearly articulated. So if the first two things that have happened in this budding relationship are lying and a boundary violation, that’s not great.”
Young also finds that if someone hasn’t filled out their profile, they may not be approaching dating as intentionally as you are, and that could be a problem.
“I generally do think it’s a red flag, just in that it means you’re dealing with someone who might not be taking this whole process very seriously,” she said. “If you’ve got someone who kind of hasn’t taken the time to fill out the profile or answer the most basic questions, I think that’s usually an indicator that they’re just not that serious about it. So if you’re looking for a long-term monogamous partnership, odds are that’s not going to be your person.”
However, Young acknowledged this rule does have some exceptions.
“This seems to be more common with men’s profiles than women’s profiles — this sort of empty profile issue,” she said. “I have talked to a number of men that I know in real life to be good people who would be good partners, and when they show me their dating app profile, I’m like, ‘This sucks! You didn’t even fill it out.’ And frequently what that reveals is not so much a lack of orientation toward partnership, but a lack of faith in the dating app process, which I mean, it’s kind of understandable.”
So how do we know if we should block or engage?
“What we tell people in Burned Haystack is that you use profiles to rule people out, not to rule them in,” Young said. “So even if a profile is completely filled out, that’s still not enough information to tell you whether that person is going to be a good match for you. You just don’t know [until you meet them]. However, it’s frequently very easy to tell right away that that person is not going to be a good match for you.”
That’s because the Burned Haystack Dating Method is more about finding red flags than green flags.
“It seems negatively oriented, right?” Young said. “And you know what, maybe it is, but it’s also pragmatic ... It’s a logical application of a vetting process. So I would say if you come across a profile that’s not fully complete, but if there’s some stuff there you like — you know, maybe you like the pictures or maybe you like what is there — if there’s nothing that’s turning you off, I would not block that person. I would at least kind of wait and see what happens.”
We also chatted with Young about what makes a killer first message, what kind of information you shouldn’t put on your profile, and lots more.
Listen to the full episode above or wherever you get your podcasts.
Make sure to subscribe to “Am I Doing It Wrong?” on whatever podcast platform you prefer so you don’t miss a single episode, including our investigations of the ins and outs of tipping, how to apologize or vanquish your credit card debt, how to find love online or overcome anxiety, tips for online shopping, taking care of your teeth and pooping like a pro, secrets to booking and staying in a hotel, how to deal with an angry person, cooking tips from celebrity chef Jet Tila, shocking laundry secrets and tips and tricks for cleaner dishes, getting your best workout and more.
For more from Jennie Young, visit her webpage and Instagram, and check out the Burned Haystack Dating Method page on Facebook.
Need some help with something you’ve been doing wrong? Email us at AmIDoingItWrong@HuffPost.com, and we might investigate the topic in an upcoming episode.