Where did you meet your permie-like significant other?

The threads about whether your family supports your permie nature and Meeting that special someone with values similar to yours - at a permaculture workshop or event got me thinking...

How many of us have permie-like significant others?

How did we meet those significant others?

I thought it might be fun to make an apple poll to find out the answers to those questions! You've got two apples to spare, and two questions to answer in one poll (because, why not?)

Aargh.  I want to respond to your poll with the answer.  I don’t have a significant other but I’m looking for one.
This response could be split into the above and- I don’t have a significant other, I’m content with life as it is.   Or something along those lines.

My SO and I have become more permie minded since we married.  He was a little more 'prepper' and I was more "Tree Hugger" so Permie was in the middle for us.  As we've grown (together, and as a family!) we both see the advantage of a permaculture lifestyle.  SO:  Don't discount someone who isn't a permie, as long as they are supportive of you.  It started with my husband telling me "The more you garden, the less I have to mow."  We no longer need a lawnmower =D

New Meeting Option - PIG CASTRATION

I met my significant other when my sister invited me to her friends house to castrate some pigs, lol.

Rob Kaiser wrote:New Meeting Option - PIG CASTRATION

I met my significant other when my sister invited me to her friends house to castrate some pigs, lol.

I think I managed to add this to the poll

I met my SO at University, through a series of coincidences in my first week.  He was chairman of the motor club. 34 years ago this year.

I added school/university to the poll--thank you!

Met my hubs at a week long work training. Numerous trainings later we hit it off and once we returned to our respective residences we started long distance dating. He relocated here a year later.

It is a true case of opposites attract.

Him, raised in large population on concrete, brought up in Christian private school, nature was somewhere you went to hunt/fish, always followed all laws, thought pharmaceuticals were the key to good health, believed all things at face value and taught that life was about working hard to have a good retirement, even if it meant spending ten hours or more per week in traffic and sacrificing happiness in our younger years. The gardening consisted of about a hundred foot squared of lawn that HAD to be mowed weekly and kept green year round no matter the cost of water. Roses on edge of lawn. Some tomatoes and peppers in barrels in the backyard. Him as an adult: OCD like routines, very clean, likes clear and concise instructions and ideas.

Me, raised off grid in the mountains, public schooled and passed between split parents, Christian like values but focused more on being kind to Earth and all inhabitants, lived morally versus lawfully, always went to food and herbs before Pharma, taught to question everything and live for each day, as we don't know if we'll get another. Our garden consisted of large veggie gardens at my Mom's and my Dad's had tons of naturally occuring snacks, fruit trees and mowing wasn't a priority for either of them. Me as an adult: Go with the flow, clutter bug, jumps into ideas without always knowing what step two will be.

He is my BEST FRIEND. Obviously we wear off on each other and for the good. Like I make my bed more often now :) Diversity is needed for survival!

My 'significant other' has died some years ago. But because he was 'significant' I filled in the poll to show how I met him and how supportive he was.
He was my second husband (and inbetween the two husbands there were some others, not that significant). Already when we first met his health condition wasn't good, partly because of a past with too much smoking, drugs, alcohol, fights and accidents, partly because of youth traumas. Those things were all 'past', but the effects were never really healed. Because of that bad health he wasn't able to do any work in the garden (and only a little bit of work in the house). That did not bother me at all. Gardening was my hobby, so I was glad he said: do whatever you like, it's your garden!

Tell a little more: he was much older. He was born in a time and place where everyone had a garden with veggies and fruits and chickens, even pigs (and all tropical, he was from the Caribbean island Curaçao). As a boy he had to help in the garden. In his later life he didn't garden. But my way of gardening reminded him of the happy parts of his youth.

Met my spouse when we were both waiting to ship out to basic training in the Army - met in March, started dating in July, married in December. 14 years ago now. 5 children.

Neither of us were permies (had never even heard of that word) but over the years became more and more permie and are now preparing to move off grid next month (with our goats, sheep, chickens, ducks....and children of course...)

I was lucky enough to meet Darling Adorable the second week into my freshman year at Texas A&M, at the Cepheid Variable  student organization cubicle (it's a SF and Fantasy writing support group with a lot of crossover with NOVA, the gaming group, and the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc,).
We had a nice chat, then he walked me back to my dorm.

Since that point, we have both managed to get a lot of growing as individuals and a twosome. It's a given among our friends that we do all the things possible, together. Buy one, get one free.

He's supportive of my interests, but is only interested in basic stuff - does it make me happy? Does it lower a bill, improve our health, or otherwise change things for the better?

He will get involved if it's something that interests him, but generally  sticks to his own things. There's a lot of overlap with us, though, and we shared a major in uni, just took it in different directions.

It's been 34 years since that day. A lot has changed. The more important things between us haven't changed a bit.
We face the future together, whatever it brings.

My only advice? Talk to each other all the time. Constantly. Talk about everything. Most people can't read minds, so you have to be able and willing to communicate. Oh, and make sure your relationship will last through the wedding ceremony. We had a nice civil service, then followed 6 months later with a nice, small church wedding. If we hadn't already been married during the planning stages of that church wedding, I swear I would have left him on a roadside somewhere.

Last vote in apple poll was on April 4, 2023