This isn't really worth a new post, but I realised something while browsing a thread on Metafilter in which someone asked about the dinner time protocol when vegetarians date meat eaters. It seems that often the omnivore partner ends up significantly reducing their meat eating too, for reasons of practicality. This is true of many veg*ns of my acquaintance. I wonder if its generally true?

In any case, it's nice to think that a non-trivial proportion of the new vegans converted by Vegan Outreach will have >1.5x the impact estimated by VO, via influencing their partner, even if they never do any proselytizing.

There are a lot people that became vegan due her partner, so that is a good point.

But I think it's probably better that involved vegan activists look for vegan partners, because they could do more activism together.

Agree with both of the above comments.

In general, emotional compatibility will matter a lot more than creating one new semi-vegetarian, because even a 0.1% increase in your productivity can probably create several vegetarians over the long term. Usually the fact that someone is veg correlates with that person being more empathetic and being a good match in other ways. But if you already know someone for whom this isn't true, then this correlation effect isn't important.

Another consideration is that a staunch meat-eater might chip away at your commitment, especially if you have cognitive dissonance due to feeling so close to someone who disagrees with your moral views. Again, this could be more dangerous than it's worth. That said, if the person isn't likely to change your values, you can mostly ignore this concern too.