On Sober Dating

...and the quiet shift in what attracts me

Something subtle but powerful has changed in me. It’s starting to shape everything about how I date—who I swipe on, how I spend time with someone, what makes me want to lean in or step away.

I’ve entered this sober dating phase pretty firmly now, and it touches sobriety on many levels. And it’s really changed who I swipe right on—and who I swipe left on. It’s fascinating to notice.

Like, I’ve started swiping left if a woman has too many pictures holding a drink in her hand. Or if one of her prompts says, my go-to drink is blank. That didn’t used to register for me even a year ago, but now it does. It just signals something I’m no longer aligned with.

I’ve also started tracking when someone responds. If a woman replies to my message at 2 a.m. or even past 11 p.m., I notice it. My mind wonders—why is she up? Why is she on her phone?

Because these days, my body starts to close after sunset. I’m in bed by 9:30 most nights and wake up before sunrise. And I live for that moment every morning—the sky slowly changing, from this uniform stillness into a quiet explosion of color. That shift, where suddenly the sun appears, as if from nowhere, catching the whole sky in its warm hand—that moment is glorious. And it happens every day. I wake without an alarm, to birdsong and the hush of early light. The thought of a jarring digital alarm clock now feels ridiculous.

And I wouldn’t be able to experience this if I was up late or glued to my phone. That 2 a.m. message? Red flag.

I prefer starting with a short video call. Then meeting up for a coffee or a walk. Not too much texting early on. Not too much forced flirtation. Daytime meetups over nighttime ones. Keeping the more adventurous stuff for later—after we’ve actually built a foundation.

I also notice and pay attention to someone’s relationship with substances—not just in terms of addiction, but also in terms of lifestyle. There are subtle ways that unhealthy relationships with substances can live on, even when they appear justified or casual. Weed under the banner of being 420 friendly. Wine under the idea of Mediterranean wellness. These are all ways to coax perception—to cover over what is actually a dependence.

And this is not just a diss on others. It’s a diss on my past self too.

On the lifestyle side, you can have conditioning—like going out equals drinking. Or food has become the center of your life, you’re always eating out, and now you identify as a foodie. I’ve started swiping left on that too.

If someone’s dating profile includes their favorite shows, or if their perfect Sunday ends with Netflix, I feel a quiet dissonance. It’s not that you can’t enjoy a good show now and then—I do too—but if it’s a regular part of your routine, I’ve noticed that’s often a sign of a lifestyle built around numbing or distraction. It’s just not part of my rhythm anymore.

And while I’m sharing all this, I also want to name something else I’ve observed—especially in wellness spaces. Sometimes, there’s a fear-based clinging to the healthy lifestyle too. Like the panic that arises at the thought of eating non-organic vegetables, or a deep fear around foods due to allergies. Again—more power to people managing real conditions. But I also see these reactions as possible signs of deep dis-ease. My wish for those who live this way is that they might come into a more easeful relationship with food and life. You can still avoid what doesn’t serve you—I almost never eat pork or shrimp—but I don’t live in fear if a small amount ends up in a dish by mistake. That’s the kind of sobriety I mean—one that includes ease, not just restriction.

Last week, I had an HR interview for a new software job, and at one point they asked how I manage stress. And my answer surprised me with how simple and grounded it was: my routine takes care of most of it. A good amount of sleep. Winding down after sunset. Eating well. Working out. All of that handles most of what people call stress.

If you listen to the entire world of fitness influencers, they’ll all say the same thing. It’s incredibly simple—and simultaneously one of the hardest things to pull off consistently. There’s something about the unhealthiness or self-destructive tendencies of the body that often shows up in its disconnection from the circadian rhythm. When the body loses sync with the day-night cycle, something deep in our nature has gone off course.

That’s why this sober rhythm feels so precious to me. And why I’m protecting it.

And in closing, I want to say: yes, these are judgments. Let’s not pretend otherwise. All of us carry judgments—we’re always making sense of the world by comparing what we observe to our own internal value hierarchies. The issue isn’t judgment itself—it’s how we relate to it.

Many people fear naming their judgments because they’ve collapsed, or seen others collapse, into shame. And if something I’ve shared here reflects something you recognize in yourself, and you feel a sting of shame, know this: you have agency in how you meet that feeling. You don’t have to collapse. You can feel it, breathe with it, and let it point you toward the life you want to live—without letting it bend your spine.

That’s my wish for everyone: a life without reactive collapse into shame. Even when shame visits, it can arrive as a teacher—not a tyrant.

And yes, in some ways, I am talking about particular people. There are individuals I’ve crossed paths with who helped surface these insights in me. And I hold them with care as I write this. I’m grateful for the ways they mirrored something back. This is the challenge of trying to speak sociologically without going coldly abstract—of staying in my own voice while tracking patterns I’ve observed, both out there and in myself.

It feels really, really good to be sober.

I’m curious—what does sober dating mean to you? Have your values shifted in how you relate to attraction, rhythm, or lifestyle? Feel free to share your own reflections, even (especially) if they’re different from mine.