Vegans can be annoying, but at the end of the day they’re right about a lot of things. It’s just that the ethics of consuming meat and animal products can be a delicate conversation, and requires a pretty big change in how one views not only themselves but life as a whole. A lot of online vegans like to approach it the with tact of a sledgehammer.
Trust me, irl vegans are usually way more chill in my experience.
Online vegan here. Just wanted to add that after a couple of years of the same jokes and arguments and demeaning comments that were forced upon you because you had to explain why you don’t want to eat what everyone else around you eats, you kinda lose your tact a bit.
Never went to somebody with a burger in hand and called him a murderer. Been called an emasculated pussy and wittle little rabbit for eating a salad so many times. Same people then complain about annoying vegans. It’s a bit infuriating.
I went vegetarian for a bit. I was never vocal about it. I just skipped ordering meat from the menu and asked for veggie options from the waiter. I was surprised the amount of people that gave me shit for it. It was like, “you know animals eat other animals right?” I used to respond with: “yes, but I want to do it for ecological reasons because factory farming is destroying our environment”. I remember getting short with people after a short period of time and started saying: “I graduated from university, what do you think?”
Most of my vegan friends are so nice. Their partners eat meat and they let them live.
Very rarely will you get a “vegan gainz” type person that laughs at people that die or have cancer because they’ve eaten meat. Those type of people are completely repulsive but they’re rarely the people I’ve encountered that are vegans.
Choosing what you eat is your own thing and right to do. But when that decision becomes what defines people they become very annoying. We live in a world of abundance which we created by exploiting people, animals and nature as a whole. So when someone comes without asking and calls you a murderer and animal abused for something they themselves did until recently and still rely on modern medicine and whole set of other animal products it’s annoying, hypocritical and most importantly dishonest.
It’s really not though, inability to do something perfectly does not invalidate the efforts people make.
it’s tiring to have to use tact around people in order to placate their sensibilities.
From my experience, switching diets doesn’t require turning your world view upside down. Maybe if your reason for going vegan is some life-altering epiphany? But I think most people already understand at this point, they just don’t want to change. I’m not speaking here with judgment.
I’m vegan at home, though I’ll sometimes make some exceptions for dairy when I’m out. Explaining that to anyone who wants to share a meal with me ranges anywhere from a brief heads up to a full on ethics debate initiated by the other person. It’s weirdly common how often non-vegans feel challenged just by the existence of a vegan in their presence. Like I’m not trying to have a conversation about it. This is a very practical thing for me and that’s mostly how I see this “lifestyle choice.” It made sense for me to stop eating meat, so I did. No internal struggles or questions about my place in the world. Just logistics about how to navigate our meat-centric food culture. So yeah, I think the biggest challenge isn’t overcoming some personal hurdles, but simply pushback from people and other external factors that make it harder to change.
