I was just curious, how many of you have met your boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife by your love of ITM?
I got interested in the music from going to the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, but couldn’t find much Scottish music, but I found some Tanahill Weavers and Chieftains albums with a few others.
When camping there, I heard SSP and Nortumbrian pipes and thought I would like to play something like that because you could play inside, and was advised to start with whistle, but the tutors featured Irish music.
Even though I mostly played Irish music, one of the reasons my ex-wife gave for leaving me was that my playing made her homesick (she was from Kilmarnock Scotland).
Now, she has moved to Darwin, England (where her oldest sister lives) and homesick for the USA. :roll:
I met my wife standing in line for a Dervish concert…
I have no love life, I play Irish music! 
But seriously, I met my girlfriend at a pub where local trad and neotrad bands perform just about every monday.
Perhaps you are just squeezing the wrong old bag???
Don’t insult my pipes like that!!! 
I have met my great ex girlfriend at Willie week, in Ireland. I would sit and watch her play fiddle, impressed and mouth wide open, a little bit like this dude: 
My wife stalked me for three weeks after she saw me play at an informal session after hours at the Minnesota Rennaissance Festival back in 1985/86. When we finally met (instead of swapping long and leering glances from a distance), I knew that she was going to be the one who I would spend the rest of my life with… well,actually, she really didn’t give me any choice in the matter whatsoever.
She had lovers by the score, every Tom and Dick and Harry.
She was courted night and day, but still she wouldn’t marry.
And then she fell in love with the fella with the stammer.
When he tried to run away, she hit him with a hammer.
Something like that, Joseph? 
djm
Very much like that In fact, believe it or not, ‘In the Town of Bally Bay’ was one of the songs I sang that night…I guess she took the lyrics a little too seriously!!!
You know, in Newfoundland they’ve turned a fragment of that song into a very popular “single” (basically a fast polka) – “She Said She Wouldn’t Dance”. It’s pretty common to hear it played a few times through as a tune, and then the four lines of song are sung. Great stuff.
Quite the opposite actually…I got INTO the music because of my (now ex-) boyfriend. He’s gone, but the music’s still there. I miss playing with him though!
~Crysania
I miss playing with him though!
No doubt, but is this what you want to share on C&F?
djm
…settle down, settle down. Perhaps more information than I require at this time…
Sol,
It’s Diana here. You met her standing in line for a Dervish concert?? Wow, I didn’t know that!
And now for a more general reply: I personally have not met a significant other through ITM, but the phenomenon of session players dating each other, at least briefly, seems to be recurringly thematic.
I think it could be related to either the strong common interest and bond, OR just due to how much time people spend together (like here in DC, you could play four or five sessions a week, that’s a lot of time to be staring at the player across from you and wondering, “What would it be like to date him/her?”) I think the brevity of relationships that I’ve seen in sessions have been due to the latter. Kind of like, you just end up dating a person because you’re hanging out together so much already. Proximity breeds attraction.
So anyway, my thoughts.
Diana
At the Ark. 
I was talking to Jane (and Dale? I don’t remember anymore) and Jen walked up and joined us. I’m sure I would have met her sooner or later, as we both knew a bunch of the same people, but that was when it happened. Afterwards a whole crowd of us went over to Jen and Emily’s place and played tunes into the wee hours.
Trivia: Completely by accident, the first dance at the wedding reception was “Josefin’s Waltz”, which Dervish played that first evening we met.