What Is a Social Life?

…thoughts from a newly sober, late 20’s girl

Last month, Theo and I were eating late-night soft serve after watching Wicked at the Hollywood Pantages Theater when he told me he’d been thinking about this question as his 28^th birthday approached.

“What is a social life? And what do I want my social life to look like?”

I know it’s a question he’s reflected on after uprooting himself from the East Coast four years ago. I’ve heard moving to LA can be a lonely experience—the city’s too sprawling, too congested, too insular. Theo’s foundations for his social life have been communities like his band, his housemates, and his basketball team.

But there’s a recent shift that we’ve both noticed in our social lives. A lot of it has to do, admittedly, with my newfound sobriety.

When I quit drinking in August 2023, I had to rediscover how exactly I liked to spend my time. Until then, my social life consisted of work happy hours and boozy birthday pregames followed by hungover mornings in bed. Sober me was now designing a choose-your-own-adventure game when I looked at the empty squares on my calendar: I have three free slots for sober activities this week. Do I fill them with friend hikes or dinners? Yoga classes? Or keep that time for myself?

my roommate and I on my first night out sober in August 2023

During these past 1.5 years, I’ve begun entering social situations with complete lucidity. I must have had a medium level of social anxiety all along (although who doesn’t?), but college onwards I masked it with alcohol. Now, I can’t help but notice each itch, crawl, and flush on my skin. I’m working on being kind to myself and letting the anxiety exist like a welcome friend by my side.

Without the time slippage that alcohol induces, I’m more attuned to what drains my social battery, and what recharges it. I’ve noticed that it runs out more quickly than before, especially at large gatherings. Maybe it’s because I’m entirely present now, giving all my attention to conversations in a crowded room, and I don’t have the social stamina yet to dive in and out of interactions without the effortlessness that alcohol brings. I know I have two or three hours tops before I start to fade.

Partnership has something to do with the socializing shift, too.

As my relationship with Theo deepens and evolves, we’re figuring out how to maintain our independence while carving out enough intentional time for one another. Right now, I drive over to his place two or three nights a week to shorten my morning commute. But we don’t necessarily get quality time together on those nights. To make up for that routine, we try and schedule a proper date every week.

I’m hyper-aware of the evenings I spend with friends versus the ones I spend with Theo. For this stage of life, I don’t want the ones I spend with my partner to outweigh the ones I spend with friends. These years feel precious to me: the ones where I’m living with a Korean friend who feels like a sister, where I can host a strictly pals-only Valentine’s Day/birthday dinner, and I can fall asleep alone and content after a full night with friends.

What is a social life? After turning 28 this month, it’s also an apt question for my transition into the late-20s.

Lilly Dancyger, in First Love: Essays on Friendship, writes about her younger, more social self with nostalgia:

“I felt a pang of longing remembering that girl I once was...Instead of wearing a push-up bra and red lipstick and making my living by being the life of the party, I work from home in sweatpants, with a cat on my lap…I don’t even drink alcohol anymore, sipping herbal tea in the evenings instead, before going to bed early. I love my quiet, calm life, but sometimes it's strange to remember how visible I used to be—all cleavage and attitude, staying out ‘til dawn. Sometimes, for a moment, I still feel like my twentysomething self. But most of the time, I know that girl…no longer exists, and sometimes I miss her.”

Once upon a time, I used to be the girl rallying friends together for nights in K-town or Hollywood. Like Dancyger, I’ve gotten accustomed to the lack of visibility and the evening quiet. I’m okay with not being the life of the party anymore. I can sit in the corner talking to one person, then Irish exit if I know my presence won’t be missed. These days, I like to be in bed by midnight, either reading a book or watching my Korean dramas.

Dancyger’s reminiscing about her 20’s from a 30something vantage point, but I suspect there are a number of us 20somethings who feel this way too. The other night, my friends and I organized a Girls’ Night Out, but we lasted two hours at the bar before people started dropping off, one by one. One friend had an early morning workout class, another felt tired, and another’s partner was already here to pick them up. We barely made it past midnight.

I went around asking my almost-28-year-old friends: what is a social life to them? What kinds of socializing do they enjoy?

One friend, Emily, purred in glee at this question. “Okay, so I know I love dance parties,” she immediately said. “But let me think—what kind of dance party? Maybe a costume party?”

My friend Hanna also didn’t skip a beat. “I love my early morning, outdoor hangs. I just like to get up and go.”

As for my friend Cole, you can usually find him at his community garden. “It’s a restorative space where I make connections with elders,” he said.

I laughed at how true their answers were to each of them. I was overjoyed to hear how even among friends, our ideal social lives can look so different. I don’t own any costumes, I’m not an early morning person by any stretch of the imagination, and I’ve never gardened in my life. But I’ve enthusiastically partaken in their themed dance parties, morning hikes, or gardening conversations. Here we are, making small accommodations to spend time with the people we love.

I was also jealous of how quickly they responded. I’m still very much figuring out what socializing means to me. But upon some reflection, here are times when I really feel like I’m in my element:

One-on-one or trio hangouts. I like giving people my full attention, to feel as if the conversation is a dynamic, living, breathing thing; served back and forth like a tennis ball, or zig-zagging through space. The smaller the group is, the more I feel this magic.

Walking or hiking. My therapist initially suggested walking and hiking to calm the nervous system during challenging conversations with my family, but now they’re my favorite form of friend catch-up. She said the rhythm of your feet touching the ground, one after another, unlocks neural pathways you can’t access while sitting still. I feel looser, more curious, and more attentive during walk/hike hangs.

Shared experiences. I recently took two dance classes—one 5Rhythms class with a close friend and another Korean dance workshop with acquaintances. Even though we didn’t speak much during the class itself, I still felt closer to these people afterwards. I’m realizing that socializing doesn’t have to mean just chitchatting; instead, it can mean experiencing movement together.

Co-writing, co-creating sessions. My summer workshop friends have ongoing co-writing Zooms that I hop on at least once a week. We chat for a few minutes, then delve into our writing projects. At first I thought of these as writing sessions but now I’ve started to count them as socializing. Parallel play, perhaps?

at a Korean dance/movement workshop

This is just the beginning. I want to attend more sober dance parties, to sign up for rewilding events in the mountains, and keep writing remotely and in-person with my friends. I want to dress up with Emily, go on early morning hikes with Hanna, and to finally make it to Cole’s community garden. Ultimately, I want to keep stripping away layers of the social armor I’d built through drinking.

Even though I’m thinking about my social life specifically as it applies to my sober late 20’s, I’ve come to realize it’s about much more. It’s about knowing ourselves more fully, which in turn means asking ourselves: who or what makes you feel entirely safe? Entirely in touch with your sense of wonder? And how can we nourish those encounters?

If you got to the end of this newsletter edition, I’d love to hear what socializing means to you these days. What does your social life look like?