Finding your mate
#campcrafting 008: How campcrafting changes your quest to find love
Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity. At the same time, we expect our committed relationships to be romantic as well as emotionally and sexually fulfilling. Is it any wonder that so many relationships crumble under the weight of it all?
~Esther Perel, 2006
In our mismatched world, we often find ourselves expecting one person to provide the support, meaning, and continuity once provided by an entire community. As Esther Perel insightfully notes, we demand much of our romantic partnerships. Given these intense expectations, it's hardly surprising that many relationships falter under the pressure.
1. What comes first?
The key question for those walking the campcrafters' path is therefore: what comes first, a mate or your Honor Group?1 I don’t mean this in the sense of priority. Each component is part of the whole of what it means to have a life worth living. The question is rather one of order of operation:
Do you focus your finite energies on finding a mate first and friends later, or Honor Group and camp first and then a mate?
The stereotypical, nuclear pair-bond pattern is celebrated as the key to fulfillment in our society, but let’s challenge this as the only viable strategy. Thinking about first principles of campcrafting and mating will be especially useful for those building intentional community.
We’ve talked a lot so far in previous articles about the best approaches to building a social network of true friends. Unlike friendship, which serves the fundamental Maslow's needs to protect and survive deeply explored in the book "OUR TRIBAL FUTURE," mating is trickier because there are alternative, competing routes to achieving reproductive success. In other words, there is only one route to being a true friend, but there are two routes to successfully mating, and these routes can at times be in conflict.
2. The Mating Paradox explained
The Mating Paradox highlights the inherent conflict in human relationships, driven by two opposing desires: to possess and to diversify. This paradox stems from our evolutionary biology, which instills in us a "lust drive" to seek diverse mates with urgency, akin to seeking food or water, and a "love drive" that promotes deep, lasting bonds to support offspring. Cultures manage this tension through varying degrees of "tightness" to their social norms—strict norms like marriage emphasize possession, while looser norms around sexuality support diversification. The paradox complicates love, as the urge to diversify through lust can conflict with the need for attachment and investment in offspring.
This is why love is so damn complicated. The desire to possess drives attachment, and the desire to diversify drives lust... and lust and attachment can often be at odds.
This conflict, an evolutionary catch-22, risks either losing a partner's investment by pursuing others or investing without assurance of paternity. The resolution often lies in signs of deep emotional commitment, assuring partners of their investment's security. The prime directive and the key driver of attachment for pair-bonded humans to overcome the paradox is by way of paternity assessment: if you see that I love you, you can be sure these are your children.
3. The role of Honor Groups in strengthening your romance
In campcrafting, it's essential to start dating with the support of an Honor Group. This ensures that your potential romantic partner is compatible not just with you but with the broader group. This approach is informed by insights from experts on contemporary relationship dynamics, highlighting the value of community in personal relationships.
Psychotherapist Esther Perel in her book: Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence writes: “We live miles away from our families, no longer know our childhood friends, and are regularly uprooted and transplanted. All this discontinuity has a cumulative effect. We bring to our romantic relationships an almost unbearable existential vulnerability – as if love itself weren’t dangerous enough.” Historian Stephanie Coontz observes: “Until a hundred years ago, most societies agreed that it was dangerously antisocial, even pathologically self-absorbed, to elevate marital affection and nuclear-family ties above commitments to neighbors, extended kin, civic duty, and religion.” And psychologists Jacqueline Olds and Richard Schwartz, in their book The Lonely American describes: “Resilient marriages usually achieve a balance between restorative intimacy and outward-looking engagement; the couple is alternately a self-contained unit and a building block in a larger social network.” In Western culture, there is an intense focus on finding the "perfect spouse," which can lead to paralysis when a partner does not meet every expectation. Moreover, those adopting only this strategy risk falling prey to the dangers of what I call “nuclear cocooning”:
Nuclear cocooning, where a nuclear family remains insulated and socially isolated from a broader community, poses significant risks, including increased stress, limited emotional support, and stunted social development due to the lack of diverse interactions and perspectives.
However, dating within the framework of an Honor Group and maintaining strong friendships can alleviate this pressure. Your partner doesn't need to fulfill every role but instead plays their part within a well-rounded communal life. This sets a more achievable and healthier standard for relationships. In summary, for those on the campcrafting quest, we should focus our primary energy into cultivating a strongly bonded Honor Group first, then - with this foundation - set out to find, and understand, our mates.
In the next articles we’ll explore some more fundamental parameters to consider when seeking a campcrafting mate.
Before we proceed, let's define some terms briefly. Rather than using 'marriage' or 'spouse,' which imply legal recognition, we'll focus on 'pair-bonds' and 'mates.' A pair-bond is a long-term, emotionally committed relationship. When such relationships involve raising children—whether through birth, adoption, or artificial insemination—we refer to them as 'mates.' This distinction is crucial for discussing intentional communities.