social situations..
I've been vegan for about 2 years now but I still don't think I've worked out the best reactions to the stupid questions/statements/situations I seem to come into contact with very often. This has probably been brought up before, so I apologise, but good answers to these questions/statements would be incredibly helpful!
1. Some variation on:
"I really admire you, I wish I could do it - I just like meat/cheese/whatever too much"
2. When people apologise to you for eating meat.
3. When something like this happens:
The other day my family, myself, and a bunch of others were on an organised bus in the middle of a rural area going to my cousin's wedding when our bus had to basically stop in the middle of the road as a whole lot of cows crossed to the other side. All the girls in the backseat started saying things like "cute!" (once said "mmm, steak" but I tried to ignore that). I didn't really need to comment here, but similar situations seem to happen often where non veg friends (or particularly my step mum who grew up on a farm) tell me about how cute farm animals are or something alone those lines and then soon after go devour some form of animal flesh.
On the one hand I like the idea of living by example and while I am often an angry vegan in my head, I often feel squirmy about saying something and alienating people as I wonder if it has a more negative than positive effect, particularly when it is with people I don't know very well who may then form a negative image of the typical angry vegan. On the other hand, this just pisses me off too much to stay quiet sometimes and I'm probably wasting oppotunities to help people understand what I now understand. I realise the best thing to do is probably to say something - I'm just not sure of what!
Often I feel alienated from people when I try to explain things and they look at me blankly. I feel like I have had such a shift in my thinking recently that a lot of other people I know are thinking on a completely different level and we can't seem to connect anymore. Does anyone else feel this way? It worries me because I don't know how I can talk to people and explain what veganism is about and why it matters if we can't even relate to each other on the basic points of the issue.
1. Some variation on:
"I really admire you, I wish I could do it - I just like meat/cheese/whatever too much"
2. When people apologise to you for eating meat.
3. When something like this happens:
The other day my family, myself, and a bunch of others were on an organised bus in the middle of a rural area going to my cousin's wedding when our bus had to basically stop in the middle of the road as a whole lot of cows crossed to the other side. All the girls in the backseat started saying things like "cute!" (once said "mmm, steak" but I tried to ignore that). I didn't really need to comment here, but similar situations seem to happen often where non veg friends (or particularly my step mum who grew up on a farm) tell me about how cute farm animals are or something alone those lines and then soon after go devour some form of animal flesh.
On the one hand I like the idea of living by example and while I am often an angry vegan in my head, I often feel squirmy about saying something and alienating people as I wonder if it has a more negative than positive effect, particularly when it is with people I don't know very well who may then form a negative image of the typical angry vegan. On the other hand, this just pisses me off too much to stay quiet sometimes and I'm probably wasting oppotunities to help people understand what I now understand. I realise the best thing to do is probably to say something - I'm just not sure of what!
Often I feel alienated from people when I try to explain things and they look at me blankly. I feel like I have had such a shift in my thinking recently that a lot of other people I know are thinking on a completely different level and we can't seem to connect anymore. Does anyone else feel this way? It worries me because I don't know how I can talk to people and explain what veganism is about and why it matters if we can't even relate to each other on the basic points of the issue.