Frustrated with the Apps? Try the “Burned Haystack” Dating Method

Jennie Young
5 min readAug 15, 2023

I’m going to introduce you to a method called “Burned Haystack Dating.” It’s far more effective and efficient than what most people do — but before I explain it, you must understand a few things:

  1. The method was developed as a result of an academic research project that is entirely non-monetized, non-promoted, and not-for-profit. I am not a “dating coach,” and I do not consult for monetary compensation. I am a researcher and professor who studies dating app interactions, and I moderate the Burned Haystack Method group on Facebook and Instagram. The group is crowd-sourced, grass-roots, and unapologetically feminist. There is no bait-and-switch: you will never have to click to another platform or pay for anything to access the information you need to apply the method. It’s open to women and nonbinary folks who dates cisgender hetero men.
  2. My expertise is in rhetoric and metaphor analysis. I teach women to use the tricks of my trades to game the dating apps. I have used the method myself, which you can read about in this article published in The Independent. I also employ a lot of humor, which is arguably more useful than my academic Ph. D. when it comes to surviving digital-era dating.
  3. All of life is metaphorical. We cannot communicate, understand, or function without guiding metaphors…

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Jennie Young
Jennie Young

Written by Jennie Young

Professor and humor writer in Green Bay. McSweeney’s, The Independent, HuffPost, Ms. Mag, Education Week, Inside Higher Ed, Slackjaw, Weekly Humorist, others.

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