The grim reality of dating sober people

Dating in January is always a weird one, given half of people have been trying for a completely dry month while the rest of us — the rule-breakers, who perhaps want to drink less but refuse to give it up totally just because it’s January (the worst month of all, anyway) — wonder where that leaves us. This year, however, is particularly strange, as it seems many people are going to be sticking with their sobriety.

New guidelines from Canada are suggesting there’s no safe level of alcohol consumption full stop, and UK headlines are asking if dry January shouldn’t continue all year. Canada suggests people drink no more than two alcoholic drinks a week. Two small glasses of wine or a pint and a half of beer a week is low-risk, health experts have said, a sharp drop from previous guidelines of no more than 10 drinks a week for women and 15 for men. But they’ve added that no alcohol at all is the only safe limit.

There’s a definite move towards sober dating, with the apps predicting it’s going to be one of the biggest dating trends this year, but what if — like me — the idea of dating someone sober fills you with dread? No shared bottle of wine, ever? No night out where all inhibitions are consumed and we just feel completely young and free and reckless? More bleakly, but more realistically, no shared, disgusting hangover and subsequent recovery where only lying in bed, entangled, for most of the day will fix us?

While current speculation as to why people aren’t drinking on dates ranges from women feeling less safe around men to the idea that it’s just a bit uncool to get plastered early on, as far as I can see from the apps there’s no one answer. As much as anything, it seems to just be a lockdown hangover, people having drunk too much at home and then switched booze boxes for a hobby like getting fit and not quite going back to their old selves when the bars reopened. Since the tsunami surge of alcohol consumption during lockdown, there has been a general decline in boozing, according to charity Drinkaware. Also the pandemic forced all of us to assess what dates were when the bars closed. Boozy picnics were still on the cards, but so were walks and other outside activities and maybe a lot of us realised then that dating without Dutch courage wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

Hinge at least is definitely showing evidence that more millennials, as well as Gen-Z, are cutting out booze completely. I recently matched with two teetotallers without even realising and then felt completely unsure about meeting them. Not because I don’t think it’s a good thing — even if just for a month — but because the politics of dating sober change everything. A few years ago, when I decided to give up booze to reset my drinking habits, I met a man at my cousin’s wedding, and agreed to a date in Amsterdam where he lived. When I arrived, he admitted his friends had all told him not to bother because before too long, I’d only try to stop him drinking or going out. In the end, I just drank when I was with him, and gave it back up when I wasn’t, because the idea of having sex completely sober with someone I’d just met for the first time in my life made me want to. He decreed me the “worst teetotal person who’d ever lived” but even trying to be teetotal helped. We spent way less time in pubs and did more interesting things as a result: opera, day trips and a watercolour painting class that neither of us realised would start with meditation (die).

On Hinge I matched with a banker called Rob who told me he only drank at family celebrations and was running marathons most weekends. Another was a chef and a DJ, two vocations never previously associated with sobriety, who was also teetotal. What they had in common was that they were both in their late thirties and seemed to be looking for something more serious than they had in their more hedonistic twenties.

In Glasgow, where I am now splitting my time with London, my new housemate is dating a guy who barely drinks. He’ll have one pint to every two she has when they’re out. It works, she says, because he never comments on her higher consumption. Can it really be that more men are teetotal? It’s true that the two friends of mine who are sober are both male, one of them having started last December for mental health reasons and another just being a complete lightweight and not being interesting in trying to become a heavier one.

In Glasgow, I find myself less interested in chasing a date with someone who doesn’t ever drink, assuming it wouldn’t work because we just wouldn’t be on the same page. Not that I want to spend all my time getting pissed, but when you fall in love you want to do everything with that person, and the idea that a whole side of your life — the going out part — would be largely off-limits, or at least be far less fun for a non-drinker, is stalling me. Louis, a lecturer I also met on Hinge, tells me he “definitely wouldn’t date a non-drinker” even though he’s drinking far less now than he is in the pandemic when he found himself going to the shop just for wine for the first time in his life.

Then there’s sober sex. Yes alcohol is ultimately a depressant but it’s also a relaxant and for a generation of drinkers used to letting a few drinks increase their confidence, the idea of sleeping with someone for the first time without it, is horrifying. The awkwardness as you get used to each other, the potentially teeth-bashing fumble of a first time, means sober sex usually comes later. For a generation whose drinking led them to hook-up culture, the idea of waiting until you really know each other feels awkward in itself. There’s no risk of waking up next to someone who looked far better the night before, but sober sex is somehow dreadfully more meaningful all round.

But I wanted to know more about how Rob would feel about dating me. Do teetotallers hate the idea of dating drinkers? And is that going to change the dating landscape forever? “It’s a very good question but no — it wouldn’t piss me off at all,” he said, “I love pubs so much, and I think pubs are really important and I love drinking, drinking’s cool.”

Well, is it cool? “There’s nothing wrong with it, if it’s done right. It’s just that since last year I’ve only drank at very special occasions — at my sister’s wedding I had a whisky with my dad and I had a few drinks with family over Christmas.

“I don’t want to waste experiences or daytimes by drinking or being hungover. Plus your accent is great, you sound like a character from Four Weddings and A Funeral. I’d love to show you the ropes around around Glasgow, pubs or no pubs.”

“My mum would love you,” I thought, which is half a good reason to meet anyone, right? Even if I’m not teetotal by the end of the date, it sounds like dating someone who drinks very rarely could be a very good influence on me.