Originally Posted by
ReadyAtLast 
I'm going against everyone else 's responses here but tbh at 8 days sober the last thing on my mind would have been dating.
RAL - you are not going against everyone's response - because I agree with you completely!
To the OP - you sound like a really, really smart and engaging person. You're a good writer and you come off likeable and you seem to be able to look at your situation with a little bit of levity, humor, and keep things in perspective.
Which is why it pains me to say it: you're nuts if you think you can start arranging dates with strangers (or ANYONE) 8 days into sobriety. The fact that it didn't even occur to you that this is a bad idea - it says something. It's abso-smurfly not the right place to focus your energy right now. And yes, "we all heal in different ways", blah blah blah. But 8 days? Nope. Two weeks? No. Six months? Maybe. You shouldn't even be monkeying around with your online profile at all, in fact you should switch it to "hidden" and start getting used to spending weekends at home for the next few months. There are so many many many healing things you can be doing instead!
Getting real here: you've got to take this sobriety thing seriously. You don't see cancer patients running out of their first chemo session and logging onto match.com, do you? No. Because they're scared, trying to get well, and they are going to focus on their recovery. Because this is serious business. Alcoholism is a serious disease too. Treat it like one.
Of course, this is all just my opinion, so take what helps and leave the rest.