A little full-circle moment before we get into this week’s episode.
My very first guest on The Dating Lab was Dr. Jennie Young, the mind behind the Burned Haystack Dating Method. She was already a name people in this space trusted, someone with a sharp, specific way of reading dating profiles that I hadn’t heard from anyone else. And as you guys know, since then, her reach has grown exponentially. Jennie released her first book this year, Burn the Haystack, and she’s been on a national tour meeting thousands of women across the country. You know her, you love her, and now she’s back on the podcast!
Here’s what we got into.
If you’re in the Burned Haystack community, you know that Jennie met her partner, Pat, on Hinge last year. Did you know that she only begrudgingly joined Hinge out of a feeling of professional obligation… and then met Pat within a month? She walks through exactly what made his profile a green flag, and why she calls it “Date Vanilla,” a phrase I obviously loved hearing from someone else’s mouth.
We also had a great (and for me, very clarifying) conversation about the ick. If you’ve ever felt that instinctive pull-back and couldn’t explain why, Jennie has a name for it now: Intensely Consequential Knowledge. Turns out, there is a serious difference between “the ick” — something totally superficial that just doesn’t align with your tastes — and “The I.C.K.”, which is a gut recognition of a problem pattern. It’s not random. It’s your brain flagging something real, usually a boundary violation, before you’ve consciously clocked it.
The conversation goes to some deeper places too, including how this same method applies to workplace dynamics and family relationships, not just dating. If you’ve been feeling like your intuition is smarter than you’re giving it credit for, this episode will back that up.
Give it a listen. I think you’ll walk away seeing your own gut instincts a little differently.
You can listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
