I’ve listened to and followed The Dating Detectives for a while now because I appreciated the way they publicly frame themselves as a supportive platform that gives women space to safely share vulnerable dating and relationship experiences. I was referred to the podcast by a friend of mine who strongly suggested I share my story with them.
Unfortunately, my personal experience with them has felt very different from the values they promote.
I began submitting my story in May of 2025, soon after my friend encouraged me to submit, and continued submitting/following up over the course of many months. I never once received acknowledgment, closure, or even a simple “no thank you.” At the same time, I continued hearing episodes featuring stories submitted only weeks before airing — some more traumatic than mine, some much less traumatic.
To be clear: I do not believe anyone is entitled to airtime. Podcasts are allowed to curate their content however they choose. The issue is the disconnect between publicly encouraging vulnerability and privately responding to some people with complete silence.
If you are going to market yourselves as a safe, supportive, women-supporting-women platform, there should be basic respect and accountability built into the process — especially when people are sharing painful and/or deeply personal experiences. And then are just completely disregarded entirely.
For those of us with histories of emotional invalidation, dismissal, or manipulation, repeatedly opening up and being ignored by a platform that explicitly promotes “support” and “community” can have a real psychological impact. It reinforces the exact feelings many listeners come to these spaces carrying in the first place: that some voices matter and others simply don’t.
Again, this isn’t about not being chosen. It’s about the hypocrisy of publicly preaching support, empowerment, and safe storytelling while privately failing to acknowledge people who trusted you enough to share their stories at all.
I genuinely hope they reflect on the gap between the values they claim to promote and the experience some contributors are actually having behind the scenes.
