Did I accidentally join a cult?

belonging = friendship + community

Jun 13, 2024

I wouldn’t say I’m especially susceptible to cults, but I would say I have fanatical tendencies.

I have joined (or almost joined) several cults in my lifetime: the evangelical church, the Auburn Greek system, a collection of indie artists operating out of a warehouse, a coffee shop later discovered to be a prosperity gospel MLM, some very active Buy Nothing groups on Facebook.

Until now, I have safely escaped them all.

I chose my co-living in Puerto Escondido sight unseen, mostly for its proximity to the beach (3-minute walk) and the fact that I was getting a discount because it was basically still under construction.

The house manager, a beautiful French surfer, picked me up at the bus station. When we pulled up to the house, I saw a group of people standing outside, all tanned, barefoot, and in various states of undress.

“Oh good,” the French Surfer said. “You’re just in time to meet everyone!”

I peered out of the car window with dread, immediately realizing my mistake. This co-living was full of Hot Beach People.

I have always wanted to be a Hot Beach Person, but I am decidedly not. I come undone in the sand and salt water. The people around me always seem to thrive in these conditions: they glisten and glow, hair falling in perfect waves in the ocean air. Not me. I burn, crisp, and frizz. I…waddle. There’s no other way to put it. At the beach, I’m reminded that I am not the kind of person who can relax.

I said my hellos to everyone, feeling like a thumb, and they all crammed into a car on their way to a yoga class. The French Surfer gestured toward a man leaning against the driver’s side door.

“And this is our Founder,” she said.

The Founder was handsome and tan, with piercing blue eyes. He embraced me.

“Welcome home,” he whispered.

Back in 2023, I went on a writing retreat with Amanda Montell, author of Cultish: The Language of Fanatacism and host of the Sounds Like a Cult podcast. On that trip, I learned a lot about the nature of cults—namely, that they are around every corner and you can never be too vigilant.

Some common warning signs popped to mind now.

Charismatic leadership. ✅

The Founder and his disciples headed off to yoga. I went upstairs and locked my bedroom door.

Love bombing. ✅

Welcome, Lane! Hola! We’re so glad you’re here! Welcome home! Welcome to the fam! the co-living’s group WhatsApp pinged.

Doctrine that exerts control over members’s personal lives. ✅

Above my bed hung a framed list of AGREEMENTS: I agree to always be conscious of my volume level. I agree to tread lightly with respect. If my housemates are uncomfortable in my desired temperature, we compromise. I agree to leave things better than I found them.

Members are encouraged to see the cult as superior to life on the outside. ✅

Over the week, I was drawn deeper and deeper into their web.

The Hot Beach People did everything together. Other co-livings are structured like a hotel with communal living spaces. This one felt more like I was at someone’s very large beach house with their entire group of friends. Sunset at the beach every night. Family dinners together. Daily yoga classes. Nightly swims. Subsisting on vegan food. Making elaborate meals together in the shared kitchen.

It looked pretty nice, actually.

Uniformity is enforced. Individual identity becomes increasingly blurred. ✅

It didn’t take long for me to succumb. A few days in, I was converted.

We all wore the same straw hats that had been placed in our rooms. As far as dispelling cult rumors, it didn’t help that I was always wearing exclusively white linen (my preferred beach look), air-drying my hair, and hadn’t worn makeup in weeks.

I joined the gym they all went to. I did a Full Moon yin yoga soundbath and chanting meditation ceremony under the palapa at sunset.

If they had all been smoking cigarettes, I probably would have picked it up too.

Factors like a desire for belonging, the search for meaning, or a need for certainty in an uncertain world can make these groups appealing. ✅

In adulthood, finding community is hard. It’s so much more difficult than finding friendship. People often equate the two, but they are distinctly different things:

Friendships are intimate, one-on-one relationships with people who have raised their hand to create and sustain feelings of mutual trust and care.
Community is a one-of-many relational experience that allows you to connect (at varying levels of depth) with and grow alongside a diverse group of people who you see regularly and—this is key—at random.

To feel a sense of belonging, you need both.

Belonging = Friendship + Community

In The Atlantic's How to Not Go It Alone, Julie Beck defines belonging as:

"...this sense that you are part of a rich, interconnected community. That you have an extended network of support and love, full of many different kinds of relationships that serve many different purposes."

So much of modern friendship is a coordination exercise to find overlapping 90-minute intervals in your Google calendars. We don’t often have the ambient hang time, parallel play, and spontaneous group meetups required to foster true communal bonding. This is why you might have a handful of intimate, meaningful 1:1 friendships and still feel lonely. We have one-off connections but lack that sense of interconnectedness.

For the past two years, I have prioritized co-living while abroad because of the community it provides. Even when I’m back in Nashville, I often choose close-quarters arrangements (living with roommates, staying at my sister’s house) because I believe that kind of friction is fundamentally important for the human spirit.

In a recent podcast episode, Ezra Klein relays the story of a friend who lives in a co-living community. He asked this friend about the trade-offs required by living in such close proximity with others:

“She said something that has always stuck with me. She’s decided to choose the default in her life being the problems of community as opposed to the problems of not having community.”

I celebrated my birthday among the Hot Beach People this year.

By this point, my defenses were completely down. I felt downright relaxed. I no longer considered pants or shoes a necessity. I had gone from being fully clothed to running errands in a bikini. When I caught my reflection at just the right angle, I thought I could even pass for a Hot Beach Person. Was that a tan line starting to form?

Promises of enlightenment. ✅

I assumed my birthday would be low-key since I was traveling alone, but I was wrong. I was abundantly celebrated by my new co-living community in Mexico: with eggplant pizza at Boulenc, curried octopus and ceviche by the water, at a cooking class with Feliz Cumpleanos-printed tortillas, with birthday wishes over coffee in the shared kitchen.

A sense of having found your true family. ✅

Just when I thought the celebrations were over, a co-living friend named Alex took me on her ATV to release baby sea turtles into the wild. Afterward, we bought cocos frios from a guy with a machete and sat down on her towel to watch the sunset.

“I almost forgot,” Alex said. “I brought you something!”

She unzipped her backpack and unloaded a plate, two forks, a lighter, a dozen birthday candles, and a pristine piece of flourless chocolate cake.

A deep feeling of belonging. ✅

The induction ritual was officially complete.

As I have so many times in my travels, I marveled at the love and care shown to me by someone who had recently been a total stranger. The experience of belonging, community, and connection has transformed me. It’s a core part of how I want to structure my life. These are the challenges I want to choose.