If Having a Boyfriend is Embarrassing, Then What Am I?

Two years ago, Hope Woodard went sober. No, not from alcohol or drugs—from men.

Around the time Woodard coined the term “boy sober,” she was obsessing over a Hinge date who was not only ghosting her, but “couldn’t have cared less if [she] lived or died.” It struck Woodard that she had a lot in common with her grandmother, who had dementia and was being ghosted (literally) by her dead husband, who naturally could no longer answer his texts. Woodard could see herself 60 years in the future, still obsessing over a man who can’t give her what she wants. 

From that point forward, she swore off men. On TikTok, her half-a-million followers watched as she detailed her experience and laid out the rules: no more dates for a year, no dating apps, no exes, and no situationships. Oh, and no hugs, kisses, or “etcetera” with men either. 

While Woodard’s boy sober hotline is a first (518-837-6237, if you ever need help), she’s definitely not the first straight woman in the world to swear off romance with men. In the wake of the 2024 Trump reelection, some American women embraced the 4B movement, a South Korean-born feminist campaign to protest the patriarchy by rejecting the big four of gender expectations: marriage, childbirth, dating, and sex with men. Even the Greeks were doing it; in 441 BCE, Aristophanes wrote the play Lysistrata, in which women withheld sex from their husbands until the men agreed to enter peace negotiations during the Peloponnesian War. 

Today, straight women are still in the midst of war, but the battlefield is mostly at bars and on Hinge. So in October, when British Vogue published an article titled, “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” it went viral, picking up the frustrations of countless straight women around the world. And when Syracuse University senior Ella Thomas saw the headline, she was elated. 

“I loved that. When I saw the headline, I got really excited because that's always what I've thought,” Thomas said. “It can be embarrassing to want a man.”

But what if I do?

In the past decade, young women have embraced anti-patriarchal values at a much higher rate than their male peers, according to Brookings. While, of course, anti-patriarchal doesn’t automatically mean anti-men, many women are fed up… with both. In 2019, the term “decentering men” was coined by Charlie Taylor, who told Cosmopolitan Magazine, “To decenter men is to actively interrogate and undo the ways the patriarchy has taught us to center them in our thoughts, decisions, and self-worth.” The New York Times and NYT Magazine recently published articles about “heterofatalism,” or “straight women fed up with the mating behavior of men,” and “mankeeping,” the emotional labor of having a relationship with a man at a time when male social circles are shrinking. The sentiment is clear on social media, too, where a bit of scrolling through my suggested Instagram Reels throws me into a world of young women posting about “bettering themselves” via everything from healthy eating and daily journaling to “the art of being alone” and swearing off men. Thomas has found herself on the same side of the algorithm. 

“In the past three or four years, I feel like I've been seeing a rise of, not even feminism stuff, but anti-men content,” she said. “And I feel like a lot of women want to be single now. I feel like it’s cooler to be single than be in a relationship.”

The Vogue article explores the idea that we’re living in a moment of contradiction: women still receive cultural capital from having a partner, but at a time when female independence is admired and men are getting bad press, women don’t want to be perceived as being obsessed with, or even in a relationship with, a man, never mind needing one. 

According to Chanté Joseph, the article’s author, women who have boyfriends today can be seen as less interesting, less exciting, and less “cool,” particularly on social media. For Thomas, being single is cool because you can dedicate more time to your friends and interests, which also goes for women who “aren't very centered on men,” like those in a relationship, but it’s not their whole life, she said.

And when a woman talks about her boyfriend a lot, it can get annoying, and people often judge them, Thomas added, noting that a relationship shouldn’t be a woman’s whole life, because “rarely are men's lives centered around women.” During her last situationship, Thomas was conscious of how often she brought him up around her friends. 

“I think [being single] just gives you more room to be independent, which can kind of make you cooler a lot of the time, whatever cool means,” she said. 

In the Vogue article, content creator Sophie Milner reflected that sentiment. “Being single gives you this ultimate freedom to say and do what you want,” she said. 

While not every relationship squanders your independence, and I’d say healthy ones shouldn’t, it’s true that being single grants you a certain freedom. And at a time when women seem to have more independence, autonomy, and self-determination than ever before—but also fewer rights to our own bodies than women 50 years ago had—freedom is coveted. 

“[The headline is] obviously a statement meant to get attention, but I think there's some truth in it, in the attitudes of women nowadays,” Thomas said.

Iris Araki, a Syracuse University junior, has been decentering men since coming to college, when she broke up with her high school boyfriend.

“After a breakup, I think everyone goes to the moment of like, ‘screw this. I'm not dating anyone. I don't want to see anyone ever again.’ I certainly had that moment,” she said. “I just took a step back for freshman [and] sophomore year, and I just took time to learn about myself and stuff like that. I realized that I valued so much of my worth around men.”

For Araki, that realization didn’t sit right. She spent time in therapy, working to detach her feelings of self-worth from male validation, which many women struggle with in a patriarchy. 

“I'm very much full with my family, my friends, my education, my career, and my goals. A man is never the center of my priorities. They are always going to be in addition to who I am,” she said. “If it comes, it's great, right? Fine, cool, great time. But, yeah, it's really not a big deal.”

This is a major shift from only a few decades ago, when a woman rarely garnered respect without a boyfriend or husband and maybe a few kids. Of course, when I go home for Thanksgiving, people still ask me if there are any guys in my life, but the culture has shifted: having a partner no longer has to be the ultimate goal or achievement for a woman, and you can live a full life without a man. 

“We are now at a point where, obviously, you don't have to be married, or women aren't totally expected to be the homemaker and not work, but there's still this expectation in life of marriage, especially to a man… that assumption, I think that's what people are confronting right now,” Thomas said.

“The pendulum swings different ways, and I kind of enjoy this swing into the ‘anti-male’ because men have been centered in society and not critiqued for so long,” she said. “I don't mind a little pendulum swing—a little over correction—and [then] we'll get back to the middle and find equality. It sounds bad, and it's not the most progressive, but like, get a taste of your own medicine.”

The problem is, humans are meant to connect. Biologically, to keep the human race alive and well, we’ve evolved to yearn for one another, physically and emotionally. But the idea of boy sobriety is empowering, especially for young women like myself who have grown up in a confusing and emotionally upsetting episode of a TV show where Brett Kavanaugh gets elected to the Supreme Court and ghosting is commonplace. My most recent situationship wanted the physical and emotional benefits of a relationship but wouldn’t do the commitment, responsibility, or work. Apparently, he “couldn’t handle a relationship,” but wanted to keep hanging out and having sleepovers, while still seeing other people (flattering).

I’ve tried not wanting a man, trust me. Especially after that last one. But I crave it. And then I wonder why, if women on the internet tell me I should be fulfilled by myself, I don’t always feel that way. 

Even Thomas, who, like a lot of the internet, likes to joke about the embarrassment of having a boyfriend, said that sometimes it can go too far. The “you don’t want to be boy crazy” narrative can make you feel like you can’t talk about feeling lonely. It’s natural to crave a romantic connection, she said. But right now, it’s complicated to want men. 

“There is something embarrassing about when a man makes a comment and reminds you that they're a man… Or like men having questionable beliefs, or when a guy likes a questionable Reel and then if you're dating him—” Thomas trailed off. “The thought of having to defend a man is what I think a lot of women don’t want to do anymore.”

For liberal women like myself, the Trump re-election was not only a disappointment, but a turnoff. Not only did 55% of men, compared to 46% of women, vote for the man who just “Grab[s] ’em by the pussy,” but the percentage of men voting for Trump in 2020 versus 2025 went up by 5 percentage points. 

The divide between young men and young women is not only growing politically, but socially, too. While young women have increasingly embraced anti-patriarchal values, men have stayed stagnant. And for the past couple of years, media narratives about men “falling behind” have run rampant. According to the NYT, it’s everywhere from mental health to education, where women outnumber men in college enrollment. 

“I draw the line when it comes to politics,” Araki said. “I have girlfriends who are Democrats but are dating Republican men, and I hear the conversations they have, and I'm just like, ‘I don't know how you would be able to live through that.’”

Unfortunately, I myself had a little incident this summer with a Republican man. On a second date with a seemingly liberal, seemingly chill guy (his Hinge profile suggested he’d recently had a Eurosummer), I spotted Trump’s “The Art of the Deal” on his bookshelf. When I asked him if he voted for Trump, he further disappointed me by saying, “I actually didn’t vote. I’m really not that political.”

Once I got over the shock and gag reflex, the experience left me so turned off to the dating scene that on the train ride home from his apartment, I deleted Hinge (well, for a few months). 

Thomas and Araki both check to make sure a potential suitor isn’t following any of the big villains on Instagram, from Trump and J.D. Vance to Joe Rogan and Theo Von. 

“Not to brag, but I’m very picky when it comes to men,” Araki said. “I don’t scout; I let men come to me, so I have the decision to say yes or no. And right off the bat, if they, for example, are not passionate about their education, immediately out.”

While I don’t know Woodard, I feel that to some extent, I understand her. We share a certain heartbreak of wanting men. But while boy sobriety has helped her thrive, I don’t know if my search for romance is something I can give up. 

So, I asked Thomas: is it unfeminist to have—or in my situation, want—a boyfriend? Does my bad bitch card get taken away for wanting to share a connection, my interests, my hobbies, my thoughts, and at some point my life, with a man?  What if I do want a family one day, kids with my eyes and my imaginary future husband’s awesome jawline? 

“If you take the article too seriously, then you’re missing the point. Feminism is about women being able to choose what they want and be free from societal expectations,” Thomas said. “To say that women shouldn't want [a relationship], that's anti-feminist as well. Women should choose.”

While not entirely by choice, I’ve been lucky enough to spend most of college single, and yes, I did mean to say lucky. I’ve gotten to spend endless hours giggling in the library with my friends, without worrying about texting anyone back. I’ve had the opportunity to travel abroad, kiss Italian boys at the club, and then a few weeks later, go on a solo trip to Prague, with no one to compromise with or entertain but myself. I’ve gotten to experiment with situationships, casual sex, and not-so-casual feelings. And I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned what I want in a partner—someone adventurous, someone funny, and, of course, someone kind. And I’ve realized my own company is one of the greatest gifts I have. I laugh at my own jokes, try new things, and sometimes I write my phone number on a receipt and give it to the guy behind the counter at Poke Fish because maybe he’s the love of my life, or maybe he’s not, but either way, I did a scary thing, and I’m proud of myself for that. 

And one day, I want to share all of those stories and new adventures with someone else. 

“I think deep down, everyone kind of strives for love,” Araki said. “Maybe we just don’t know how to get there.”