Desolate Dating Podcast Launches
Glasgow’s Haylie Shipp launched a new podcast in August about the pleasures and perils of dating in rural America. Her new interview show, Desolate Dating, has been stimulating conversations about love and commitment on the Hi-Line and beyond.
She told NPI that her experience as a radio host and broadcaster has helped her set the new show up for success. “I have been in the world of radio now since I was 21,” Shipp said, “so it’s been 20 years because I’m now 41. I started out doing radio that was regional for the Northern Ag Network and did that for right around a decade before I came to local radio with KLTZ in Glasgow.”
After approximately seven years with KLTZ, Shipp said she started producing 90 second programs on ag-related topics every weekday for the Ag Information Network. “For the last five years now, I do programs for Florida, Georgia, Alabama and California.”
Shipp’s new podcast episodes focus on the challenges of loneliness, awkward post-romantic encounters, the prohibitive size of small town dating pools and intersecting social circles. Asked who the show is aimed at, Shipp said she’s been adjusting her expectations.
“I started off thinking my main demographic was singles between the ages of, say, 35 to 55,” said Shipp, “but one of the first texts I got was from a gal that was in her early 70s telling me that she met her husband at a funeral.”
Shipp said some listeners have turned up from the younger end of the demographic spectrum as well. “I have heard I’ve infiltrated the high school in Glasgow, so they’re talking about it,” she said.
Dating and relationships are the primary topics on the podcast, but Shipp said she hadn’t bargained on being single during production. “When I was launching this, I was in a relationship and wasn’t planning it to be a memoir by any means. It’s not going to be a real time breakdown of anything that’s going on in my life, but there are going to be some people that are going to know certain things are about them.”
Shipp said she’s promoting Desolate Dating on social media and mainstream media platforms. “I’m on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook,” Shipp said. “It’s available on all major platforms; Spotify, Audible, Apple, Amazon. And then I’ve also got the video feed up on YouTube.” Recent episodes of the new program include titles like “Loud Chewers in Moose Jaw,” “Seven Minutes in Miles City” and “Can’t Keep a Caveman Down.”
Among the responses she’s had so far, Shipp said some people have shared feelings of isolation and alienation resulting from such a limited dating landscape. “There does seem to be some anger out there as well,” she said. “Past relationships have planted a seed, you know; rejection plants a seed and eventually people just kind of feel victim to the situation.
“I want people to realize that if they’re going through this struggle, there’s a ton of us that are out there going through the same thing, especially in rural America, where you are more likely to have friends that are all coupled off.”
Shipp said her inaugural season will run for a full year. “August to August is going to be the season,” she said, “episode release every Tuesday.”
To stream Desolate Dating, check wherever you get your podcasts. For community updates, visit the show’s Facebook page.
