No dating, no sex, no men: Why women in their 20s are going 'boysober'.

Situationships.

Ghosting and love bombing.

Attachment styles.

Taxi cab theory.

Breadcrumbing, soft launching, and woke-fishing.

His follower count going up by one.

Orbiting.

Saying he's 6'1, when he's really 5'10.

Long distance.

Swiping left.

Gut instinct.

"Are you exclusive?"

If you don't know the meaning of every phrase above, I'm going to guess that you're not a single woman in her 20s navigating the dating world. A specific group whose heart rates jumped a little bit just reading that opening paragraph.

The rise of infographics and story-time TikToks and professional dating coaches have caused this group of women (myself included) to develop a new term for pretty much every behavioural trait experienced during dating — even if it's been around since our grandparents' time.

Watch: Hope Woodard 'Before I got boysober.' Post continues below.

Now, there's no such thing as a fleeting thought or an odd date without it being turned into a video viewed by millions of people where a 21-year-old girl tells you the reason the guy you went on a date with ghosted you was because he's dismissive-avoidant and had an unfavourable upbringing.

Before you know it, you're doing an attachment-style quiz from his perspective so you can learn the traits of a dismissive-avoidant while replaying the date in your head and cursing at yourself for asking silly questions like, "What are your parents like?" and "How many siblings do you have?"

You should've known better… even though this was only the first date.

Exhausting, right?

Enter the 'Boysober' movement.

Yes, I'm aware I'm adding another term to the mix. However, this term has the opposite effect to every other modern-dating term.

Being boysober is the idea of giving up men, sex, dating and most importantly… situationships for a period of time. Think of it as a chic form of celibacy.

There's no single definition or rule when it comes to being boysober except for putting in the restraints to truly focus on yourself as a single woman. This might mean going on dates but not having sex, this might mean avoiding all men at all costs. It's basically whatever you have to do to fully commit to yourself.

And the moment I heard about it, I was instantly intrigued.

So I went straight to the source to speak to the person who popularised the boysober movement, comedian Hope Woodard.

The 28-year-old decided to take a year off men when she realised she used dating as a crutch.

"One day, I was like, 'I think I really have to change something about the way I date. Whatever I'm doing right now is not working'," she told Mamamia. 

"I had given up drinking for about a year because I had this really dependent relationship on drinking. I wasn't quite an alcoholic, I was just very [much] a party girl drinking like all my other friends. I gave that up for a year, and it changed my life and my headspace and I felt like I needed to do the same thing with men and dating.

"I had this constant need [for] a guy to be around, or to be going on dates, or to have a person to be texting. I was just like, 'Okay, I think I have to just, really give all this up'."

Woodard went viral on TikTok as she documented her experience and sold out standup shows.

@justhopinalong

The official boysober rules lmk if you had questions or feedback

♬ original sound - Hope Woodard

After learning about the boysober movement, 26-year-old Natasha* adopted the idea straight away. She said that she had never been in a relationship before so she always felt like she had to keep putting herself out there.

"Ever since I started having casual sex, I would always get intimacy confused with love and it would blow up in my face every time. I would make it this huge deal and assume it was a step taken in the direction of a relationship when honestly, I didn't even like them as a person," she said.

"I now realise that casual sex isn't for everyone — definitely not me — so I've had to put a pause on dating as a whole to reevaluate what I want out of it."

When looking back on her dating life, Natasha admitted that similar to Hope, she had what she describes as an addiction to dating which predominantly stemmed from dating apps.

"I would be mindlessly swiping on multiple dating apps five to six times a day without even considering that there's an actual person on the other end. I never swiped right on guys under six feet tall or if they had something I didn't agree with in the bio like a religion or a political alignment. I would judge the type of person they are without even knowing them," she told Mamamia. 

She also talked about how when she did match with someone who had the "perfect" profile, she became obsessed with them.

"I would freak out if they didn't message me in a day and I'd fall into a rabbit hole finding 'dating coaches' on TikTok to tell me the answers I wanted to hear."

When you're in the world of casual dating, situationships and I'm-not-really-sure-what-we-ares, I personally know that you will watch video upon video till you find someone who looks like they know what they're talking about tells you, "He's just really busy with work", or "You need to find yourself a hobby."

And the dating coach industry is booming. Dating guru Jillian Turecki has six million followers across her social media profiles and makes around $7 million in annual revenue, according to Bustle. 

@jillian.turecki

Your obsession isn’t about them. #anxiousattachment #communication #relationshipadvice #boundaries #selflove #datingtips #divorce #relationshiptalk #relationships101 #codependency #relationships #love #selfesteem #datingadvice #relationshipexpert #healingjourney #selfesteemboost #communicationskills #datingadvice101 #datingadviceexpert #relationshipissues #relationshipcoaching #datingproblems #findinglove #jillianturecki

♬ original sound - Jillian Turecki

TikToker Niko AKA The Daddy Academy delivers bite-sized dating advice mainly for women dating men. His videos reach millions of views and he is constantly replying to questions and comments from women hanging on to a last string of hope that their situationship hasn't failed.

When the rest of us would reply "Oh, sweetie…" Niko takes the time to provide them with a firm but kind answer.

@thedaddyacademy

Watch this video if you never want to be lovebombed again‼️👨🏼‍🏫 #datingadvice

♬ original sound - Niko | The Daddy Academy

The immediate access to short, easy-to-understand human behavioural analysis works perfectly with the fast-paced conditions of dating in 2024. Women are experiencing everything from love to heartbreak within a month and these content creators help them decipher their emotions.

This has evolved from the relationship advisors that millennial women relied on. Esther Perel has been a force in this space for years (and still is). Personally, as a big fan of her work, I never go to her while I'm in the midst of dating. Why? Because she won't tell me what I want to hear in that moment.

The only time I want to hear her advice is when I'm not currently entangled in webs of waiting for a text back and Google searches of "How long before I ask if we're exclusive?"

Listen: Esther Perel on Mamamia's No Filter podcast. Post continues below.

Although the addiction to dating and unhealthy patterns is a huge reason why many women go boysober, it's not the only one.

Tahli Blackman, 22, said she took a step back from dating and meeting men for a whole other reason.

"We're seeing partners killing their wives or their girlfriends, and we're seeing randoms killing women on the street. I'm pretty safe when I'm online, but at the time, I just did not want to see a man, especially a man that I didn't know and wasn't 100 per cent comfortable around, because I was just so angry at men in general," she explained.

Although our access to dating and meeting new people has become easier, the mental load of the process of going on dates has remained the same — especially for women.

Not only are we going through heartbreak after heartbreak, but in order to date, we have to put ourselves in situations where we don't have full control.

In my girls' group chat, I searched for variations of the phrase "text us when you get home" and found that we've sent that message 144 times in the past year.

Before I go on a date I tell my friends everything I know about the guy I'm about to meet, including his social media accounts, where we're meeting and his last name. I share my location with them. I give them updates if I decide to go to their place. I tell them when I've reached home safely and I carry scissors in my bag (yep, you read that correctly).

Single women have stories of dates turning into unsafe and terrifying situations ingrained in their brains. Whether it's a friend or a friend of a friend or that one girl your cousin met on her exchange in Canada. We hold these stories as proof that the strategies we take to keep ourselves safe aren't crazy or obsessive but necessary to give us peace of mind as we share our lives with a complete stranger over drinks. 

Woodard — who is based in Brooklyn — confirmed that the state of the political climate in the US has also had an impact on dating. 

"Here in the states, women feel so angry and concerned about their rights. There's so much distrust between mostly straight men and women. We don't really trust men and the only men that we see examples of are men who are at the top right now. Look at Donald Trump. We just cannot trust them over here," she shared.

She further explains the drift between men and women in dating saying, "I think there's more and more space happening between men and women. There's like a lack of understanding on both ends, straight women don't really understand men, and I don't think straight men really understand women. Because of the political landscape right now, I think those two things just keep drifting further and further apart."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Hope Woodard (@justhopinalong)

So I think it's fair to say that dating in 2024 is a bit of a sh*t show for women. So how does the boysober movement actually help? 

I asked Woodard what changes she noticed in herself after taking on the challenge. 

"In the beginning, I felt empowered. It was one of the first times I was in control of my own body and my own space, and it was really nice to only have friendship on the table for anyone at all times," she said.

"For the first time ever, I was like 'I don't give a f*ck, you can take me or leave me. All you have of me is myself. If a conversation and time with me is not enough, then that's so fine'."

She added, "My standards have risen quite a bit. I'm uninterested in putting up with something just because it's better than being alone. For so long I was like, 'Oh, I would rather have a situationship that couldn't make me laugh to save his own life.' Instead of figuring out how to be alone, I think a lot of women are now waking up to [the realisation that] men do not fulfill us in so many ways and we're unwilling to put up with that. I think our standards are rising."

When it comes to being boysober, the goal is to put in barriers to help you fully and completely focus on yourself and your wellbeing. Hope says that if you're planning on going boysober, don't take it too seriously.

"If you're actually trying to go boysober, you totally understand the idea of a boy-lapse, or you understand the messiness of it. The boysober conversation is supposed to be a bit more playful. You should be however you want to be. It was expressed to always be based in the empowerment of whatever it is that you want," she said.

"I'm not trying to make anyone feel like they need to give up sex. Back when I was in college, the headline was 'Have as much sex as you want to have.' Now, almost 10 years later, the headline is, 'Don't have sex, that's what makes you powerful.' I just want women to be able to ask themselves, 'What is it really that I need?'"

What do you think of the boysober movement? Tell us in comments.

If you want more from Emily Vernem, you can follow her on Instagram @emilyvernem

Feature Image: Instagram via Hope Woodard, photography by Michael Gebhardt/Supplied/Canva.

*Name has been changed upon request.