Episode 20: Burn the Haystack, Bumble & Midlife Dating Reality Checks 🔥🧠

This week on The Midlife Mess, I’m diving into the viral dating philosophy from Burn the Haystack by Dr. Jennie Young — and honestly? I feel personally attacked in the best possible way.

I break down:

• What the “Burn the Haystack” method actually is
• How critical discourse analysis applies to dating profiles
• Why language reveals more than people realize
• The difference between intuition and rationalization
• “Attraction of deprivation” and why inconsistency can feel addictive
• The rhetorical red flags hiding in plain sight on dating apps
• Why “fluent in sarcasm” may not be as charming as men think it is
• Why online dating should be treated more like a job search than ordering takeout

I also confess that I got back on Bumble and paid for premium to test this method in real life…for journalism. Obviously.

This episode is funny, a little unhinged, deeply analytical, and ultimately about learning to stop rationalizing people who are showing you exactly who they are.

If you’ve ever:

• ignored your gut
• confused anxiety with chemistry
• over-explained bad behavior
• stayed too long in “potential”
• or wondered whether you’re being “too picky”…

…this one’s for you.

And yes, I’ll report back on whether I actually find any “needles.” 🔥🪡

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

And welcome to the Midlife Messiah. My name is Lauren Thompson. I am a single, divorced, working mom. I'm 42 years old, and I just bought a house with my seven-year-old parents. Welcome to my midlife mess. Hi guys, how are you doing? Welcome back to the Midlife Mess. I'm gonna welcome myself back to the Midlife Mess podcast because I'm sorry I've been a little erratic in publishing new episodes. As I explained in the last episode, life has just been kind of crazy lately. But we're talking about something today that I am very excited about, I'm very into, slightly obsessed with, and also maybe a little personally attacked by. So I just finished reading Burn the Haystack. Have you heard of this? If you're not in the dating world, then you probably haven't. So let me break it down for you, and we are going to kind of wrap it up by the end into how this method can be used in life, not just in dating. So honestly, and I started talking about this book before I was even done with it because I got so immediately fascinated by the ideas in it. But now I've actually finished the whole thing and I feel like I can officially report back as someone who has fully entered her Burn the Haystack era. And because apparently I like immersive journalism now, I also get back, got back on Bumble and paid for the premium membership, which by the way, has the price has gone up drastically in my last, you know, five almost six years of on again, off again online dating. Inflation, damn. Okay, so yeah, I'm testing the theory, guys. This is this is what I do for you. We're bringing the book into the field. We are seeing if we can find any needles. And I mean, I will certainly report back on whether or not this experiment has been working. I have had this the subscription for at least about a week now, and we haven't found a needle yet. So far, we found a guy that in his main profile picture has a squirrel on his back, and I did screenshot that and send that to my friend, and she knows why, and she found it very hilarious. I did have a very disappointing encounter where I like got my hopes up for a second, but at the end of that conversation, I burned down that piece of hay. Okay, so let me tell you what I'm talking about. The basic idea of burn the haystack is that online dating is not about patiently sorting through every single piece of hay, hoping there might be a needle in there somewhere. So the lady that wrote this book, she is she's a PhD professor of language, and you guys, I don't know all the technical terms, but she knows what she's talking about, okay? So she found herself in her midlife and single, and you know, faced with this prospect of finding an actual respectable human online. And, you know, people always say, like, yo, you know, it's like finding a needle in the haystack. Like, yeah, yeah, you have to go through a lot of numbers, but you know, you'll find one eventually. Well, she thought, I don't want to take, you know, so much time to do this. There has to be a better way. So, y'all, one night she googled, how do you burn or how do you find a needle in a haystack? And y'all Google told her, you burn the damn haystack. And I don't know, I'm hoping that you guys are all having like a light bulb, mind-blowing emoji moment right now because holy shit, that makes so much sense, right? If we have our proverbial haystack and we're looking for our proverbial needle, you light the thing on fire because the needles don't burn. Ugh, I'm just clearly I'm obsessed. Okay. And here's the thing about this process: it's about getting rid of the obvious no's quickly, ruthlessly, and without guilt. So to so that if there actually is a needle, you can see it. And what makes this book so interesting to me is that the method is based on something called critical discourse analysis. Now, I know that sounds very academic. It sounds like something I would have pretended to understand in college while nodding and hoping nobody called on me. Happened, that happened a lot. But it's actually pretty simple. Critical discourse analysis is basically a way of looking at language and asking, what is really going on underneath these words? It is looking at the way people speak, write, post, advertise, describe themselves, and communicate, and asking what their language reveals about power, bias, social norms, manipulation, gender expectations, and cultural beliefs. It's less about grammar and more about meaning. It asks, why are they saying it that way and who benefits from it? And honestly, once you start looking at dating profiles this way, it's very hard to stop. And because language is never just language. And this is the part that you can apply to just anyone out in the wild that you meet. The words people choose shape how we think, they normalize certain behaviors, they reinforce power structures, they tell us what people think is acceptable, and in dating, that can reveal a lot. And honey, it can save you a lot of time. Okay, let me give you a few everyday examples. If a man says, Women just expect too much these days, critical discourse analysis asks, why are women's standards being framed as the problem? What assumptions about gender are hidden in that sentence? Who benefits from women lowering their expectations? Another example, a boss says, We're like a family here. Okay, maybe that means supportive. Maybe that means warm and friendly. Or maybe it means please don't have boundaries, please answer emails at night, please let us underpay you because family helps family. Language is doing something there. Or think about a headline. This happens all the time. Working moms struggle to balance it all. Critical discourse analysis would ask: why is this being framed as an individual woman's struggle instead of a workplace issue, a social issue, a childcare issue, or a partner issue? And why don't we hear the phrase working dads struggle to balance it all ever, honestly, or like nearly as often, but ever? So when we bring that lens to dating profiles, the question becomes what is this man really saying? What is he revealing without realizing he is revealing it? And it was so interesting to me because that is a critique that that she pointed out in the book. What is he revealing without realizing he is revealing it? And that is a very important point, I think. And she does emphasize it. Oh, and I should have told you guys already. The author's name is Jenny Young. So look it up. I should have already given her credit for that. Thank you, Dr. Young. So this is a point, and she like puts this all out there, and it's it's I guess a criticism that she's gotten since she started, you know, that since she came up with this method, that that like, well, people don't realize or they don't they don't intend to give that meaning. Well, but that doesn't matter, especially when we're looking at like a dating profile. This is what this person is putting out in the world for you to solely base your opinion on them about. So whether they think carefully about the words or not, we can still judge them for those words. And and a lot of times, and you'll see, like she, you know, makes these connections between things that sound benign, and then you know, once you break it down, you see how, like, oh, huh. There it is. So I just I think it's really important to point that out. That it's not figuring out what people mean to say, it's analyzing the beliefs under what they say, whether they, no matter what their intention is, you are getting things like, what does he think is normal? What does he think women are for? What is he trying to get away with before we've even met? And this is where the book gets really fun because we're not just looking at whether a man is attractive, we are not just looking at whether he likes dogs or tacos or travel or whatever the apps have convinced everyone is a personality. We are looking at his language. We are looking at the choices he made when he had a tiny little space to present himself to a potential partner. And if what he chose to present was bitterness, laziness, control, superiority, confusion, horniness, resentment, or quote-unquote fluent in sarcasm, then maybe we should believe him. Okay, I want to give you guys a little example of how certain words can be coded. Loyal will always stay with me and never leave me, no matter what. Even if I'm abusive, neglectful, or unfaithful. And y'all, we're saying this, you know, in the context of like decoding the language that men use on the dating profiles. When they say generous, that is coded for will serve and pleasure me to your own detriment. Open-minded, willing to put yourself in uncomfortable, painful scenarios if it's what I want. Fun loving. How many times do we see that? Will never make me deal with or even think about anything serious because that wouldn't be fun for me. Oh, here's one of my favorites, chill. And when they s when they say they're looking for someone chill, someone that doesn't take herself seriously, will tolerate anything from me without complaint. How many of you are thinking, oh, that makes total sense? And you know, when you think about it like this, a man knows he can't actually say any of that stuff. So he says, loyal, fun-loving, generous. So now you guys are starting to see what I'm talking about, hopefully. And and hopefully, you know, what just happened for you is what I love about this method so far. It feels like intuition, but explained in a rational way. Because so many times, especially as women, we feel something is off and then immediately start negotiating with ourselves. We think, am I being too picky? Maybe I'm misunderstood, maybe he didn't mean it that way, maybe he's just awkward. Like, how many excuses do we make, right? I'm I'm terrible at it. You know, classic. Maybe he's actually great in person. Maybe I should just give him a chance. And sometimes, yes, people are awkward, sometimes people don't write well, sometimes people are nervous, but also sometimes your body and your brain are picking up on something real. Sometimes the cringe is data, y'all. Sometimes the bad feeling is not trauma, sometimes it is pattern recognition, and that's what this is. What this method does is give you permission to stop rationalizing men who should not be rationalized. That phrase alone is like, period, stop. Stop rationalizing men who should not be rationalized. And it Dr. Young gave such a funny example, and I felt so seen and so guilty. She talked about one of the dating profiles that she saw was a man who like his main profile picture was literally him with a devil mask on, like smiling. And, you know, she like chatted with him because all the rest of the stuff in his profile was like matched with what she was looking for, you know. So she like messaged back and forth with him for a little while. And maybe if you are the type of person that, and I have some friends like this, and I just I cannot identify at all, but I think it's admirable, is like if you have seen that and you immediately are like, nope, swipe left, because you just are not an emotional decision maker, but I am, and I feel like, you know, probably about half of us are. And I just identified so much with Jenny Young, and you know, it's like she messaged back and forth with this guy, and like, I don't think for very long, let's say that, but you know, eventually well, not eventually, like it didn't take her very long to see, like, okay, you know what? I think I should just go with my first reaction here. And so that's just what this book is saying is like, stop. Look at what is actually there, not what you wish was there, not what could be there if he became a different person. What is actually there? Another concept that matters here is rhetoric. Rhetoric is the art of using language to influence people. And that does not automatically mean manipulation. Rhetoric can be beautiful, it can be inspiring, it can comfort people, motivate people, make people feel seen. But rhetoric is about how something is said, not just what is said. Two people can communicate the same basic idea, but one person says it in a way that is powerful or persuasive or emotionally loaded. In politics, when someone says, we need to protect hardworking families, that is rhetoric. It is meant to create connection and agreement. In advertising, it's because you deserve it. That appeals to emotion and identity, not logic, right? In dating, someone saying, I'm just protecting my peace might be totally valid. Or it might be rhetoric for I do not want to be accountable to anyone ever. So we have to pay attention. There are three classic types of rhetoric pathos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is credibility, is trust me because I know what I'm talking about, like a doctor's credentials or someone saying as a mother, or I've been through this myself. Pathos is emotion, it is storytelling, it is making you feel something. Logos is logic, it is evidence, facts, reasoning, numbers. And dating profiles use rhetoric all the time, sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally, sometimes badly. But when a man writes a profile, he's not just listing facts, he's creating a little argument for why you should choose him. And the burned haystack method says, okay, let's examine that argument. Is it respectful? Is it coherent? Is it generous towards women? Is it emotionally mature? Is it showing curiosity about a partner? Or is it just a tiny little manifesto about how disappointed he is in women? Because those are two different things. I want to read you something directly from the book that is a good example as this, a good example of of this. Has anyone ever told you to smile? Smiling is good. Who doesn't want to smile? But the social custom of men encouraging women to smile reveals a lot of nefarious forces. Men are taking an authoritative position over women in which they get to direct the muscular positioning of a woman's face, thus dictating their embodied rhetoric. Men are assuming that a performative display, the smile, is more important than a woman's internal state. Even if you take the gender dynamics out of it, a smile request reveals vapid and overly simplistic cultural mandates that fail to account for human complexity. Turn that frown upside down. But what if the frown was the more appropriate response? I just love, she gives such good practical examples. So now that you guys are kind of seeing what this is based on. And I guess to fill in the gap of like, how did this lady go from like Googling how do you burn a haystack one night and turning this into a dating method? Like, as I said, she's a professor of language. So she was already doing this, you know, critical discourse analysis and studying rhetoric and teaching that to students. She just started applying it to dating. She tried it herself for a while and obviously kind of developed a lot of these things. And then I think she like kind of worked with a focus group or something. She came up with some rules. Let's get into the burned haystack rules. Or at least the ones that are really standing out to me as I read. And again, I am trying my best to apply these to my one-week-ish bumble premium experiment. Which, you know, I may regret, but it's fine. We've done it before. Rule number one: the app is a tool, not a place to kill time. And this one's huge. And I mean, how many of us have just like, oh, okay, I don't have anything else to do right now? Let me just swipe. The app is not entertainment. Let's not, you know, and and all of this is like presuming that you were looking for a long-term relationship. And I should say all of this is presuming like a heteronormative relationship, but a lot of the concepts apply to anyone. Let's not treat looking for a long-term partner like a slot machine. It's not something that you should just open because you're bored or lonely or avoiding doing something less stimulating. It's a tool. And the purpose of the tool is not to get attention, it's not to get dopamine, it is not to soothe oneself with the possibility that someone out there might like me. The purpose is to identify people worth meeting in real life. That's a very different mindset. And just put all that into one word is have be intentional. If, you know, if your goal is a long-term partnership, then like be more intentional. If you're just looking to smash, then like whatever, there's no rules. Okay. Rule two focus on messaging over scrolling and swiping. This one's also very practical. The goal is not endless swiping, the goal is communication. You have to be like talking back and forth with someone to, you know, for this method to really flex its muscles, you have to be, you know, decoding the language. So If the communication is lazy, weird, sexual too soon, confusing, or low effort, that's all information. Do not respond to lazy messages. Do not carry conversations that are already dead on arrival. And one really, you can just take this piece out of this whole thing and run with this. One thing from the book that I thought was really interesting is the question, and I get this, you know, sometimes that men will ask, What has your experience been like on here? And that seems harmless, right? It seems like, oh, they're asking a question. They care about my experience. But the book makes a very good point that if you answer that honestly, you might just be giving someone a playbook for how to deceive you. If you say, Oh, men always do this and this and this, then a manipulative person now knows exactly what not to do at first. So the better answer is to be very vague, something like, oh, you know, there's a lot of pros and cons, or not so bad, and then just move on. Because we do not need to hand out the syllabus of like how to be a normal person, how to act like a normal person. Okay, rule number three: no notifications. Turn your notifications off for a said app, you know, whichever one you choose to use. That is it really is something that gets at the heart of this whole method of like, you still need to have a life. Don't let the dating apps run your life. So yeah, turn the notifications off, check them like twice a day or something. Rule four block to burn. Okay. You're wonder you're wondering like, where's this burn part of the haystack, right? This is the most dramatic and the most like transformational concept. Okay, don't just hit the X, don't just swipe left, scroll down to the bottom of said person's profile and hit block instead of just Xing out block. And there is a little issue with this because some of the services have been a little nefarious about not actually blocking people when you say to block them. And I have noticed that think a few people have come back up after I've blocked them. So I can never be like totally sure, but I'm starting to get the feeling like that's happening, and shame on you, Bumble. Now, this is the part where you have to be ruthless. Okay. Think we're not we're not a slot machine, we're looking for a long-term partner. And you know, some of you may be having a hard time with that word, ruthless, because we want to be kind, we want to be fair, we want to give people the benefit of the doubt. But this is not about punishing anyone. This is about clearing the field. You do not have to fight with them, you do not have to explain, you do not have to educate, you do not have to create a rehabilitation program for men on dating apps. And God knows I have done plenty of that in the past. I feel like I I've literally told my therapist before that I feel like I exist to educate men. And God help me, I hope that's not true. No, you just block them. Now, if you want to say, like if you're having a conversation with someone and you want to just say, like, you know, thank you for the conversation. I don't think this is, you know, this doesn't feel like the right match for me. But don't wait around for the answer, okay? You say that, you type it, you send it, and then you block because what good is going to come of their answer? And again, that's the whole point of this whole method is to take the emotion out of it and to rationalize this process. Because, and Jenny Young makes this point several times. Yes, you know, we're talking about love, we're talking about looking for love. But, honey, you can love anybody. But if you're looking for a partner, then thinking about this in a rational way at first is so helpful and freeing, and can honestly help you not have a lot of heartache when you take your emotions out of it. Okay, so we're gonna block. Just block. Rule five, no fighting with men. We've kind of already covered that. We don't need to have a rehabilit rehabilitation program for men, and it's like, what what what good is this gonna do fighting with a stranger on the internet? Just just stop, just move on, move on. We're wasting time that we could be finding an actual needle. Rule six, don't be a pen pal. Lord knows that's a thing, but here is someone that studies language for a living telling you messaging is supposed to lead somewhere, it's not supposed to become a long-term emotional support chat with a man who has no intention of making a plan. There should be enough messaging to establish basic comfort, interest, safety, and then you should see movement toward meeting. If he wants to text forever but never make a plan, that's not romance. That's an unpaid admin. You're just being his like virtual support buddy. Let's we're we're getting on with that. We're making moves. Okay, rule seven set your geography, but don't share your location. This, I think, is seemingly just a safety precaution. And she does point out that if you are in a really small or like rural area, that you may have to set your like you know, geography like wider. So just be smart about that. Rule number eight: no ludic looping, I'll explain, and no attraction of deprivation. And that that really piques my interest. Like, hmm, attraction of deprivation. What do you mean by that? Okay, first, ludic looping is when you get stuck in the loop of the app. Swipe, match, check, wait, refresh, swipe again, check again. You know, there's like it's like there's like a cadence to it. And you, you know, like just stop the swirling. It's the same mechanism that keeps people gambling or scrolling TikTok for an hour when they only meant to look for two minutes. And the rule here is do not become a victim of the app. Now that you know that's how the apps make money, they don't actually want you to find the love of your life. They want you to be on the app. So now that you know that that's their intention, now you can make your life more intentional. Now, attraction of deprivation means becoming more attracted to someone because they are giving you less. So they are giving you less attention, less consistency, less clarity, less reassurance. And I mean, that one needs a moment because so many of us have confused anxiety with chemistry, and we've talked about this before. Someone is inconsistent and suddenly we're invested. We're like hooked in. Someone is hard to read and suddenly they're intriguing. Someone gives you a little breadcrumb of attention and pulls away, and now, you know, your brain wants to solve the puzzle. And that is not necessarily attraction. That might be deprivation. That might be your nervous system chasing relief. And I'm at a point in life where I do not want to win someone over by surviving emotional famine. Talk about language. Think about that. Okay, rule nine: no men who can't plan the date. And this is a very interesting, like just feminist kind of hot topic, right? Someone is going to hear this and say, why should the man have to plan the date? Women can plan dates too. And yes, of course, women can plan dates. That is not the point here. The point is not that the woman must be passive. The point is that planning a date is a very basic demonstration of effort, judgment, consideration, and emotional and practical labor. Can he make a plan? Can he Google? Can he make a basic inference about what you might like based on your conversation? Can he suggest a time and place like an adult? Can he work with you if there needs to be an adjustment? Because if he can't do that, y'all, what are we signing up for? If a man cannot plan coffee, do I want to find out how he handles illness, holidays, kids, conflict, aging parents, a house repair? No. So just these things are connected, y'all, and we do not need to make excuses for this. Rule 10. Online dating is a job search, not ordering takeout. This one just makes me laugh whenever I think about it. Because, you know, I feel like most of us order like Uber Eats. So it's like whatever you want is at your fingertips, right? It's not immediate gratification. It's not, I'm hungry, let me pick something, you know, which thing I'll get here the fastest? What am I craving? It's more like a job search. You're looking for fit, you're looking for alignment, you're looking for competence. You are looking for someone who can actually do the role. And if you think of a dating profile like a resume, it changes how you read it. Would you hire someone whose resume said, Don't waste my time, fluent in sarcasm, looking for someone loyal? Or here we go. Would you hire someone whose resume said, just ask? Probably not. Hopefully not. So why are we dating them? Play the long game, not the immediate gratification game. Now, you may be thinking, like, all this is negative. So let's look at what does actual needle behavior look like? This method is not just negative, it's not just block, block, block, burn, burn burn. This is also clear needle behavior. A needle sends you a message that directly references your profile. It is respectful and well written. He does not reference your appearance in the first message. After you respond, he responds in a reasonable amount of time, maybe within a day, and he continues the conversation like a normal person. Messaging goes on for a few days before he suggests meeting. If you ask for his full name, he gives it to you and is clear that transparency is fine with him. He suggests an actual date with a time and place. He works with you on any adjustments, he shows up on time, looks presentable, the conversation flows. By the end of the date or shortly after, he lets you know he wants to see you again. And maybe most importantly, the dynamic continues to build, and you're not left wondering if he's into you. And that last part's so important. You're not left wondering. I think a lot of us have spent way too much time wondering if he likes us, what he meant, why he said that, you know, wondering if we scared him off. The burned haystack method is basically saying stop treating confusion as romance and is giving you the practical steps to figure it out. Okay. The next thing to understand in the process is there are Dr. Young lays out 33 rhetorical patterns to look for that are red flags. I'm not going to take you guys through all 33. I'm just going to kind of do like my top 10, the ones that I think are the most practical. Okay, so rhetorical pattern number one: test and apologize. This is where someone says something slightly rude, inappropriate, sexual, or boundary pushing, and then immediately softens it with, I'm just kidding, relax. Sorry, you didn't mean to sorry, didn't mean to offend you. But the point is, the test already happened. They were checking what you would tolerate. And honestly, this one alone could save women so much time, right? Okay, rhetorical pattern number two. I'm a very busy man. This establishes hierarchy immediately. The subtext is my life and priorities will always matter more than yours. And then women are expected to feel lucky if he eventually makes room for them. No, busy adults who are genuinely interested still make effort. Y'all, seriously, women are multitasking and doing way more things on any given day than a man is. So calm down, Chad. Okay, number three, fluent in sarcasm. We mentioned this a little bit already. Everyone is sarcastic sometimes, like duh. That's a part of being a human. But when someone leads with this, it can be a setup for avoiding accountability. Everything becomes, I was joking, you're too sensitive. Can't you take a joke? I don't want to spend my time decoding whether someone is insulting me or entertaining himself. So just avoid those man boys. Disciplinary or directive language. I love this one. This is the don't be dramatic. Swipe left if don't waste my time. Be feminine. Know how to communicate type of profile. Like when they're saying all those things, they're like telling you what to do. And here's what's important about that. This person had an opportunity to just tell you who they are, but instead they use their little bio, however many characters they let you put in there, to manage, correct, or scold women. That's incredibly revealing. They're a block. Okay, number five, sexual non-sequitur. This is the guy who turns everything sexual immediately. And like, y'all know, it's it's comical if it wasn't so true, right? You mentioned food, he sexualizes it. You mention travel, he sexualizes it. Like anything, like a horny man can sexualize anything, right? You mention breathing oxygen. It's like, okay, guy, enough. I mean, that, if nothing else, signals just poor social awareness and often entitlement to intimacy before connection has even been established, clearly. This one is a big eye-opener. Conditional decency. This one, yeah, really stood out to me. These are men who act like kindness, respect, effort, or emotional maturity are rewards women must earn. Basic human decency is not a prize package. That's the that's the bare minimum. Like one of the examples that she gave was that a man saying that he'll something about like, I'll get the things off the top shelf for you, like if you're nice, or something like that. So it's like, well, no, you should I shouldn't have to earn you helping me just because I'm like vertically challenged, you know. Okay, number seven, peace seekers. And this, I don't know, I peace is like a buzzword right now. It's men saying they want peace. I think they're just I think they're mocking women in general to like for a man to even say this, because I think women have said, and I don't mean that you individually, I feel like there's been kind of this like, I don't know, just like saying that's become popular of women saying, like, I'd rather have my peace than have a relationship kind of vibe. And I think men are basically mocking us by saying they want their peace, whatever. And you know, peace sounds lovely. I think we said it in an earnest way, but sometimes what they really mean is I do not want to be challenged, I do not want accountability, I want someone compliant. That's not peace, that's emotional convenience for them. Number eight, cuddle bears. I think that men have just learned that saying like anything about sex is not gonna get them the results that they want, at least not, you know, a good amount of the time. I think they've just learned to replace that with cuddle. Are you guys seeing a lot of this on the apps? These people. I hope that all of our, like Melissa, I hope that you are just laughing your butt off at all this nonsense that we have to deal with. You know what, you married people, listen and think about your single friends. Think about your single girlfriends, and then think about what single men you know, and try to, you know, match a girl up in the wild so that we don't have to deal with all this bullshit. Okay, here we go. Number nine, at his earliest convenience. This is the man where everything operates on his timing. He texts when it's convenient, makes plans when it's convenient, shows effort when convenient. And I think like men have kind of conditioned us into thinking like, well, once he really likes me, he'll prioritize me more. But no, let's flip that. Early effort is information. It's like you're auditioning. Why wouldn't you be putting your best foot forward now? It's yeah. Number 10. Blue ribbon for bare minimum. This is when men want applause for meeting the lowest possible standard. Like, I've never cheated, I've never hit a woman. Holy shit, dude. Think about how wild that is if a man puts that on his profile. And I mean, I've seen I I don't know I've seen exactly that, but I've seen something similar. And it's like, well, am I supposed to say thank you because you've never hit a woman? Congratulations on not being a criminal. That is baseline functionality, and it's another one of those things where it's just you have to look at like, can this person read social cues and like fit in with social norms? Like, you don't want to end up with that person. So, translating this into real life. I love this, and I'm so, you know, glad to be like putting this out here because it really can be used with everyone, not just on the silly apps. It helps you judge behavior in real life too. And one of the questions that I love is, would my husband do that? And I think that just brings so much clarity. Like when you're whatever behavior it is that you're considering, and if you were to say, Would my person do that? No, your person would not do all these like gross things, you know? Now, another thing that I want to give you guys before I go is beware of weasel words. She covers this in the end of the book. People use these when they are lying, distancing themselves, qualifying their words, or leaving themselves room to deny something later. Words like really, as in, I didn't really do that, or try, as in, I'll try to make time. And I'm not saying that every person who says try is evil, but again, language matters. And when someone uses soft, slippery, vague language around effort, accountability, commitment, or truth, pay attention. And again, it's not that they are intending to say these things or give these meanings. And that's almost that's almost the best part about it is that this is our like again, like decoding of what someone actually means, whether they intend it that way or not. I think what makes this feel so promising to me is it forces you to think with your brain, not just your heart, which I've said. I lead with far too often. I mean, it's and it's gotten me into some not great situations, you know, and it just caused me a lot more heartache than I probably could have had. And sometimes the heart is like, but he has kind eyes. And the brain needs to be like, he also said he is looking for a woman who doesn't take life too seriously and knows how to be loyal. So maybe let's circle back. I hope you guys have enjoyed my uh voices I've been doing for men on dating profiles. This method forces you to be critical, not cruel. Don't feel cruel. Critical. There's a difference. Being critical makes you awake. You are observing, you are not handing your power away because someone gave you a compliment or looked good in one photo from like however long ago. I think women, especially women dating in midlife, this is so important because we've been trained to consider everyone else. We're trained to be nice, to be fair, to give chances, to not judge, to, you know, don't be shallow, don't be too picky, you're, you know, don't be too demanding, don't be too difficult. But dating requires judgment. That's the whole point. You are the judge. You're supposed to judge whether someone is a fit. And if you're not allowed to judge, then you're not choosing. You're just waiting to be chosen. And I don't want to do that anymore. I have definitely done that in the past, and that's not a place I want to be anymore. So as you can tell, I felt very seen by parts of this book that talk about rationalizing. I've definitely done that. And I think because I'm like, I'm just an eternal optimist, and it's one of those things that, you know, that Kelly, my therapist, is like, this isn't it's not a bad quality. It's just something that you have to guard against. And I think this book is like our shield. You know, I've made excuses for poor communication. I've turned low effort into like, oh, he's busy and all the things. But I think a lot of us have done that. And it's all about like seeing potential, right? And I think that's good. That's good that you are a hopeful, optimistic person. Don't try to diminish that. Just use this information to be more rational at this point. You know, and it's I know people are not perfect. And I think sometimes it's a little bit out of a scarcity mindset. We're scared that there won't be anyone better. And I mean, I know I'm fighting that a little bit. Um, you know, you you block, block, block, block, and uh, and and you just think, like, what if I block everyone? But I mean, honestly, y'all like if it it doesn't mean if there isn't anyone in your pond right now, it doesn't mean that there won't be tomorrow. And that's another thing that this method reminds you is that if you are actually if you're blocking people instead of just swiping left or Xing out, then when you check tomorrow, the needle will actually stand out. And think about it this way, too. Burning the hay is progress, you know? You're not gonna find a needle laying on top of the haystack. You're gonna have to burn some hay. So I am gonna follow up with you guys next time and just do a little gut check on myself to see if I've been able to follow these rules. So we'll see. I guess where I landed after finishing Burn the Haystack is. I mean, I really am thinking about dating differently now, and that's the mark of a useful book, and that not that you agree with every single thing immediately, not that you follow it perfectly, but that it gives you a new lens, and this lens feels really powerful. It's you know, and it's just teaching you to listen to language and trust patterns and stop over-explaining, stop auditioning men who are not qualified for the role, stop digging through hay that is clearly hay. And, you know, if you burn enough of the hay, then the needle becomes easier to see. So wish me luck or pray for me, or both. Also tune in to the next one because uh yeah, we'll see. I'm gonna be burning this haystack. Thank you for listening. If this episode made you laugh, think, immediately want to open your dating app and start blocking people, send it to a friend who needs it, and just another ask that I think I'm learning I need to be more clear about asking things. If you like this episode or the whole show or whatever episode, I would be so appreciative if you would share it on your socials, just in whatever way it's really easy to share either like on a Facebook post or Instagram is not an easy place to share in the posts, but there is an option to put a link into Instagram stories. So I would just really appreciate that. It's just gonna help the show grow and help me keep going and bring you guys more content that hopefully is entertaining and useful. So thank you so much for listening. I'll talk to you next time. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Midlife Mist. If something in this episode resonated with you, please share with your family and friends and subscribe so you won't miss new episodes every Wednesday. Please also go to my website, themidlifemeness.com, where you can connect with me and find out more about how you can support the channel and discount. 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