Experts weigh in on boy/girl sober trend exploding on Gen Z TikTok
Sarah Fitzgerald has vowed to stay celibate as modern day dating is so tough. But she’s hardly alone, with ‘boy sober’ the latest trend for young women. Here we explain what it all means.
SA Weekend
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Fumbling through the casual dating scene as a single 20-something is as familiar as it is terrifying for millennials of the Tinder era.
But the rite of passage may be becoming obsolete, with Gen Z declaring abstinence from sex and relationships in a trend coined “boy/girl sober”.
According to experts, the surge of dating apps is to blame, with fatigue from endless swiping and expensive, unsuccessful one-off dates causing young people to hit pause to focus on self-care.
But while many have touted it as empowering, local sex therapist Anisa Varasteh argues it’s “a reaction to a system that is failing”.
“The way young people are finding partners nowadays is just online, and the way that our psychology works doesn’t necessarily align with the way that apps are designed,” Ms Varasteh told SA Weekend.
“Psychologically, the way we find someone attractive is through our five senses. The way they look is just obviously one of them, but how they sound and the smell of their body, the way they move their body, the interactions, the context. All of these things consciously and subconsciously form the way that we assess this person as suitable as a mate, but all of that is missing in online dating.
“Because of so many failures people experience dating this way, they just decide not to do it anymore, and they have a very strong emotional reaction to it,” she explained.
The “boy/girl sober” movement was first brought to the fore in April 2024 by TikTok star Hope Woodard, who found herself obsessing over men she was meeting on dating apps, but winding up disappointed and disheartened each time a fling came to an unceremonious end.
In an attempt to refocus and recalibrate, Hope, 26, deleted all her dating app profiles and vowed to stop her search for love for a year. She went “boy sober”: No sex, no flirting and absolutely no dating.
She isn’t the only one. Sarah Fitzgerald from Mount Barker took a vow of sobriety nine months ago after a two-year relationship ended.
“It was a big reality check,” the 33-year-old mum-of-three said.
“I couldn’t see a red flag if it was waving right in front of me.
“I am a lover and I felt like that my energy was never matched in a relationship, especially my last one … I always feel like I have more feelings … I just gave sort of my all to them but I wasn’t getting nearly as much back.
“I decided to romanticise myself in my own life and be the person that I wanted in a partner.”
Sarah decided to stop dating and having sex completely to 100 per cent focus on herself and her children.
“It’s been liberating, it’s kind of like taking my power back and discovering being me without being influenced to look or act or live a certain way to make myself any more appealing to someone,” she said.
“It’s just so freeing because it gives me more space to be and to discover who I am because I didn’t really know.
“I would adapt to certain parts of someone, like if I had an interest in the same thing … I would make someone a bit of my identity and I’d lost some of myself and getting rid of all of that, peeling that back to know me and all about me has been really eye opening and shown me that there’s so much more to life.”
Sarah said she’d encourage anyone to become girl/boy sober — in fact she wished she’d done it sooner.
She said she’d want to re-do her 20s and to spend less time in relationships or worrying about being in relationships to focus on herself.
“I would encourage anyone in their 20s to really consider it, because … the 20s was such a weird but great time, discovering yourself — I didn’t do it enough.
“There was a couple of years there where I was basically boy sober and they were the few best years of my 20s and I really should have had a stronger mindset and just kept going with it.”
The term “boy/girl sober” itself has taken off, with young men and women everywhere jumping on board.
But how effective is going cold turkey, with the intention of returning to dating in the future, in securing a long and happy relationship?
Local couples therapist Nicholas Purcell said for people who find themselves feeling “consumed” by a potential relationship — almost like an addition — the danger of entering an unhealthy one is ever-present.
Therefore, any approach that gives a person back a position of power is a wise move.
“This sobriety concept is really about establishing your own self as important and learning to like living with and by yourself,” Mr Purcell explained.
“If the experience of doing this for some time gives people the ability to choose and stay in healthy relationships then it is a good idea. However, it can’t be like a diet where you starve yourself of the thing you want and you spend the entire time in a state of deprivation. It needs to be like healthy eating, not fad dieting,” he added.
Similarly, Ms Varasteh said taking a break depends on how you approach the alone time.
“Taking a little break can reset habits, but doing it with intention and doing it with a plan of, how am I going to re engage with this thing, rather than just putting it aside all together.
“Also understanding that the desire for sex and intimacy is a very core desire, and it has an impact on a general sense of well being, so you can’t ignore it.”
For many, the desire to quit dating reflects changing attitudes to love and relationships, as marriage and the concept of finding a soulmate are increasingly considered outdated, while fresh approaches to finding fulfilment or relationships that challenge traditional social norms take precedence.
But does a complete ban on intimacy undo the steps society has taken towards removing stigma and shame around sex?
“We can encourage self care and self awareness and setting boundaries as well as encouraging people to enjoy sex and enjoy pleasure,” Ms Varasteh said.
“We don’t want as humans to be alone. We want to feel that connection, that human connection with another person, and intimacy is important. It’s not just sex, it’s a psychological and emotional intimacy with another person.”
Ms Varasteh added that working on yourself and your sense of confidence with self reflection, education, and even therapy, can help achieve healthy boundaries.
Don’t miss Body+Soul on September 1 for all the eye-opening results from the Body+Soul 2024 Sex Census, found inside your Sunday paper.
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