Single and crunchy

Well, as a young, single, male crunchy con, I can say that I certainly sympathize with the writer. Crunchy cons don't seem to be too common, at least not in my area; the young people I know who believe in the environmental tenets of crunchy conservatism don't necessarily believe in the religious side of it, and of course, vice versa. It gets depressing when every available female has a tramp stamp and whose most pressing issue is which celebrity is banging which...

I believe Rod didn't intend to overlook you. Being single and a Christian most often means be invisible to married Christians, especially if you are a woman, as I am. Since married people most often run lay Christian activities, get used to being presumed not to exist in the eyes of our married brethren.

There are some areas where the Church is open to singles. If you are a man and are Catholic there are lots of opportunities to explore potential vocations to the priesthood. Not so much encouragement to religious life for women.

What if you don't want to be a priest or a religious? Well then people don't know what to do with you. It's as the letter writer stated: the rest of the married couples are waiting for you to grow up and find your soul mate (or settle if you have to) so that you can join in the fun.

I live with another single Catholic. It's nice but it sure would be better to have a bigger support system. Group co-housing might be nice. Imagine: shared(locally produced) meals, daily lauds, a support system of folks who believe and live as you do. The only thing that comes close to aligning with this vision of mine is the original Catholic Worker house with Dorothy Day. I don't know if this kind of arrangement can exist in this day and age. Maybe in an urban, eastern area? It's a thought well worth exploring.

I have to confess, I don't reach out to singles as much as I probably should. I tend to assume that single people do not want any part of my noisy, messy, family life and that they would be horrified to enter into my untidy home filled with children and pets.

Of course, I am basing this upon my own experience as a single person, which was 15 years ago and decidedly non-crunchy, con or otherwise.

That single crunchy con needs to join those of conservatives who are downright soggy: Pro-free enterprise, pro-assertive military policy, pro-democracy and nation building, pro-conservative judicial nomination and against environmental extremism.

You'll be married in no time. I guarantee it.

Maybe we need a Crunchy Con match.com. Or at least a Crunchy Con Craigslist.

I love your book and blog, Rod, but I have long wished that you wrote more about this topic. I had no idea how to meet the type of person that is attracted to our philosophy. I am a single crunchy con male, but I finally got engaged to a wonderful crunchy con woman this year. There was no grand strategy other than lots of prayer and patience. Hang in there single CC's, and keep praying!

Michael: Move to Birmingham, Alabama. There are loads of CrunchyCon Christians living in the city. Be warned, though: I think our girl:guy ratio is probably 3:1, or worse.

I'm packing my bags as I read this...

When I was single and hadn't found a circle of like-minded friends, I used to wish that arranged marriage or at least some variation of introduction of like-minded singles to each other was still practiced in the West. But of course it wasn't and isn't, and there were many times I was desperately lonely. It's not easy, especially when one doesn't share many of the points of view even of one's own church members, let alone one's classmates or colleagues. At the time, I copied down some difficult but ultimately helpful words from the Notebooks of Simone Weil, which I still find useful today, when like-minded people are still few and far between:

To want to escape from being lonely is cowardice. Friendship ought not cure the sorrows of loneliness but to double its joys....Friendship is not to be sought for, dreamed about, longed for, but exercized (it is a virtue)....

Preserve your solitude. If the day ever comes when a *real* friendship is bestowed on you, there will be no conflict between your inner solitude and this friendship. On the contrary, that is the infallible sign by which you will know it.

I too am single and in the process of working my way through this book. I actually was raised a moderate Republican, became a solid leftist in college, and then beagn to drift towards a form of social conservatism as i saw my old community die, i continue to see broken families as a threat to the security of the nation, i've come to value agrarianism as the cornerstone of my America, and i've grown truly closer to god than i ever was as a kid, all while maintaining my environmental values and a belief that problems with education and welfare will ultimately be solved by local bodies, not distant monoliths. Personally I'd like to blame my singleness on the fact that I've moved a lot in the past year or so, but family life is something I'd like to aim for once I settle down. i'm moving to Memphis, Tn soon and plan to be there for quite some time. Sounds like the southeast is a good place for a CC to be, huh? Maybe there should be a meeting place or something.

As a single young man, close enough in most ways to the archetype to accept being termed a "crunchy con" (though I'm not entirely sure the label is 100% appropriate to me), my advice is to live as close as possible to your parents and hometown. Where I live (Jefferson City, Missouri), the sort of structures and community that the Miss Sarah longs for are available. I live quite happily in the same house as my parents, and I am quite content to continue to do so until I am financially secure enough to begin actively seeking a wife. It seems to me that my living arrangement is much closer to the traditional mode of life, especially as it is practiced in cultures outside the United States, than the typical rootless situation of most young people, crunchy or otherwise.

Granted, there are drawbacks to such a choice (I'm afraid I'm not as well positioned for wife-seeking than I would apparently be in Birmingham), but it seems to me to be an excellent and often overlooked solution to the problem of loneliness. It depends, of course, on parents who are amenable to such a thing. I'm lucky that my parents were "crunchy" long before there was such a thing.

We have several single friends that we consider to be like family, and we'd all love to have each other as part of our support network, but we can't, for the same reason Rod bemoans as keeping us far from blood kin: jobs. We all have to work, and for various reasons, the jobs haven't come up in the same area.

Rod, I must gently remonstrate with you for assuming single friends wouldn't enjoy family life. Perhaps some would not--but maybe you should ask them before making that assumption? Back in our semi-communal days, we had some of our single friends actually living in the house with us. At times the uproar was, indeed, too much for them and they needed to absent themselves. But most of the time, they enjoyed it and so did the kids. Isn't it awfully un-crunchy to automatically segregate people by artificial categories like marital status? I feel excessively segregated where we currently live, and it's one of the things that is perpetually on my list of things to fix.

Ethan C. said: I live quite happily in the same house as my parents, and I am quite content to continue to do so until I am financially secure enough to begin actively seeking a wife.

Hello, Ethan. I think this is an interesting statement. Do you mean that when you are finacially secure enough you will move into your own place and then start "actively seeking a wife?"

I don't know if it's a difference in local culture or generation or what (I'm 50 and live in Seattle), but I have to say that here, a single man who lives with his parents is not generally considered a good marriage prospect. (The assumption being -- obviously not necessarily a valid one -- that he doesn't have the ability or gumption to support himself.) A very young man who lives with his parents and is saving money is seen as wise and mature -- but not really marriage material until he's "left the nest."

Strong family ties and sound financial planning are good reasons for an adult to live with his/her parents; but what does that arrangement say, if anything, about self-sufficiency? I'd love to hear a discussion on this.

Toad, I'm not sure if you or anyone else will read this, now that the post is off the first page (the perils of an excessively active blog, alas), but I'll respond anyhow just in case.

I haven't yet decided whether seeking a wife will necessarily require moving out of my parents' house (as I plan on being chaste, bedroom privacy it isn't an absolute must), but marriage certainly will. I agree with the popular opinion that living by one's self is excellent practice for the responsibilities of marriage, and I'd like to make sure and get it before the big test.

However, I don't tend to think of such things in terms of "self-sufficiency." I think that American culture vastly overvalues that quality. "Responsibility" is a different concept, related to stewardship and duty rather than autonomy and freedom. It's responsibility that I expect to eventually cultivate through independent living, not "self-sufficiency," as I think the latter is a dangerous illusion. It's also, I think one of the main causes of loneliness nowadays.

But, to be frank, the ideals of responsibility and preparation for marriage are taking a back seat right now to economic realities. Living at home, I can save money like nobody's business and get out from under my student loans. Since I enjoy my family's company and my parents rarely impinge on the freedoms I value, I have very little incentive to leave, and a great deal to stay. They don't seem to mind having me about either.

But I've promised to leave as soon as I believe I'm taking advantage of their hospitality. And I swear I won't become another Ignatius J. Reilly. :)

However, I don't tend to think of such things in terms of "self-sufficiency." I think that American culture vastly overvalues that quality. "Responsibility" is a different concept, related to stewardship and duty rather than autonomy and freedom. It's responsibility that I expect to eventually cultivate through independent living, not "self-sufficiency," as I think the latter is a dangerous illusion. It's also, I think one of the main causes of loneliness nowadays.

Hello, Ethan. Yes, "responsibility" is a better word for what I mean. Thank you!

Sarah the 'reader' gave a lot of good examples of why it's good for an adult to live on his/her own for a while. I think that the way a person (man or woman) orders his/her household is a really important indicator of compatibility. If I visit you at your parents' house, I'm most likely seeing their comfort level with clutter, their taste in colors and furnishings, their standards of cleanliness. But what I want to know about is how tidy you are, colors that you find comfortable and restful, how clean you keep a kitchen, how your yard looks. These are not trivial things. If a man is going to be the head of his household, he needs to know how to hold house -- and how will he know how if he doesn't do it?

Anyway, none of this is aimed at you personally.

Best regards!