Woman who was tired of obsessing over ‘situations’ became ‘boysober’

• Comedian Hope Woodard went viral on TikTok earlier this year when she coined the term “boysober” while documenting her break from dating
• “It was just a perfect puzzle piece in the conversation that people were already having about celibacy and not about dating,” Woodard tells PEOPLE
• What came next — it went so viral that the term she created was all over Etsy — was something she could never have imagined

When New York City-based comedian and content creator Hope Woodard, 27, decided to publicly share her decision to give up sex or dating for a year, she had no idea that the venture she dubbed “boysober” would go viral .

After years of failed attempts to find love through dating apps, Woodard says she knew something had to change, and during a trip to Tennessee to visit her ailing grandmother, she realized it.

“My dating life was really a mess,” she tells PEOPLE. “While hanging out with my grandma, I texted this guy who I was obsessed with… but he didn’t care about me at all and he just ghosted me all the time.”

That’s when Woodard decided to get away from it all. “Sure, I can figure out how to find purpose in life outside of the person I’m dating,” she remembers thinking. “That was the origin of it.”

As the youngest child in her family, Woodard says the relationships she saw firsthand growing up certainly shaped her opinions as she grew older.

“My parents wanted to make it work so badly, but it wasn’t supposed to. They fought all the time. So my previous examples of love were messy,” she says. “So dating has always been a bit messy for me because I have some classic abandonment issues, trust issues and attachment issues.”

As she left the dating scene and took sex off the menu, Woodard shared her experiences on TikTok. where she has over 430,000 followers). At the time it was just her journey, but then a phone call to her sister yielded a catchy term that caught on like wildfire.

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“I was like, ‘I think I have to do this for a whole year,’” says Woodward, explaining that a year-long break from quiet drinking changed her life. “It was the first time I felt like I was really getting to know myself and thinking, ‘I think I should do something similar with men and sex,’” she recalls.

“And (my sister) said, ‘Oh, so easy, you’ll get sober,'” Woodard says, “and I thought that was so exactly right.”

And the term quickly caught on, especially among Generation Z.

“After the conversation with my sister, I started talking about it on TikTok, in that language and using the word ‘boysober’,” she says. “The culture was already so ready for a word like that because so many women weren’t already. had sex, so many women were tired of dating, dating apps and just men in general.”

“It was just such a perfect puzzle piece in the conversation people were already having about celibacy and not dating,” Woodard adds, saying that since this was something so many people were doing, the only trend it took to “really blowing up” was “a catchy Gen Z internet term for it.”

Still, the self-described “older Generation Z” tells PEOPLE she was surprised by how big things got.

“I had no idea it would be on Etsy and Twitter in three months,” she says. “I honestly thought it would just be me and my little corner of the internet.”

Relationship coach Amie Leadingham, who is in her 40s and married, assures PEOPLE that you don’t have to be part of Gen Z to get the vibe.

“This is something I did when I was dating and I was like, ‘I totally understand this ‘guy sober thing,'” she says.

Leadingham says she works with clients who are frustrated by the dating scene and the many horrors that come with it, and that taking a step back from dating is a good opportunity to refocus and do some self-reflection. In fact, she followed that advice herself when she was younger, and just a few months after hitting pause, she finally met her husband.

Leadingham tells PEOPLE that being “boysober” aligns with current dating trends where singles are prioritizing intentionality when it comes to the relationships they want to pursue.

“10 years ago with online dating there were a lot of hookups, people started relationships very quickly, and I now see a slowdown,” she says. “Everyone has more self-awareness when making choices than just going through the motions.”

When it comes to implementing the trend in real life, Leadingham says she advises clients to limit dating apps and social media in an effort to reset. Returning to online dating, she says clients should focus on being the chooser rather than trying to market (yourself) and win them over because ultimately it’s your authenticity that will find the right person for will attract you. ”

For Woodard, “boysober” is an act of self-care.

“It’s been a way for me to get to know myself and focus on real connections and friendship, and not rely on the validation of dating and dating apps and sex,” she tells PEOPLE.

Woodard adds that while she “likes to fantasize about” being in a committed relationship, she knows the way she looked for love just wasn’t it.

Overall, Woodard tells PEOPLE that she hopes “boysober” helps people “know themselves better… and ultimately feel stronger.”

“I want everyone to make a decision based on choice and not out of desperation,” she says. “To feel full and genuine and powerful, so that you can really choose love, sex, rejection, whatever it may be.”