The Discovery+ reality show “Love Off the Grid” combines the concept of “fish out of water” and “opposites attract.”
Season one features four couples where one person is a city person and the other prefers to live in the middle of nowhere.
Joe Watts of Rome and Myesha Price of Fayetteville are a casting person’s dream: they couldn’t look any different.
Myesha is a 33-year-old teacher who loves singing, bowling and baking. She is tight with her family but fell in love with Joe via a dating app. She is enchanted by his long hair and his blue eyes.
Joe is a 31-year-old handyman from Rome who also raises goats. He fell in love with Myesha for her beauty and confidence. “She is smart, driven, wise for her age,” he said on the show’s first episode.
He purchased a 23-acre piece of land just over the Georgia border in Centre, Alabama. Don’t let the fancy spelling trick you. The estimated population is about 3,500. The Walmart is about 30 minutes from his new home, which he is building from scratch, mostly by himself.
“Right now, we’re standing in the middle of God’s country,” Joe said. “I can do anything I want without having to worry about plans getting approved, following codes. They don’t bother you out here unless you’re putting poo in the ground.”
He adds: “This land is my castle and I am the king.” For him, “nature is the best teacher you can find.”
They met on a dating app, though in this case, it was for “alternative lifestyles.” This means they are both into polyamorous relationships, seeking to build a multi-adult household where everyone is intimate. Myesha is open to other women joining them in what could end up being a sizable homestead. (I originally used the word “compound,” which Joe thought had “cult” connotations.)
Maybe this show will help them attract some candidates.
Myesha last year, after eight months of dating long distance, quit her teaching job and moved to Centre to be with Joe full time.
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Myesha admits that living in the woods isn’t easy for her. (She moved in with him just a few months ago.)
“I’m completely out of my element,” she said. “I’ve been in the city my entire life. I don’t like bugs.”
She said she doesn’t miss Fayetteville at all. Visiting every few weeks to see her family suffices. Her family, she said, accepts her choices, though they were shocked by her abrupt decision to leave town and move in with Joe.
“My grandmother would build things all the time,” Myesha said. “She was a gardener and loved fishing. She was always outside. I feel like she’d be watching and be proud of me.”
What’s it like making this major life change in front of TV cameras? “Weird as [expletive],” she said bluntly.
WHERE TO WATCH
“Love Off the Grid,” available for Discovery+ subscribers
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