One of the constant jokes that I see on the internet is that Vegans/vegetarians will insist on telling everyone that they are vegans even if no one asks them. Like this one:
Me waiting patiently to slip in the fact that I’m vegan into a conversation
Having been vegetarian for 44 years, I don’t think I walked up to anyone just to tell the that I was a vegetarian or brought it up in a conversation for no reason and I have not seen anyone else do it either.
It does come up when you are discussing food items or planning where to go for a meal. Telling people at that time is required when planning a meal because you want to make sure that there are vegetarian options available wherever you are going because if you don’t then you can end up in a situation like I did where my team took me out for lunch to celebrate a major release and we ended up going to a steakhouse because this was in Kansas and everyone else in the team loved steaks. Luckily they had veg options available but that’s not always the case. So in those cases telling people that you are a vegetarian has nothing to do with bragging but more towards ensuring they take that into account as well when choosing a restaurant. The same would be the case when someone has a severe allergy to something. A friend of mine is allergic to eggs so we all ensure that he doesn’t end up consuming something with egg in it. It is just basic courtesy and friendship to do that.
However there are some people who take it as a personal affront that a person doesn’t eat meat. There was a post a little while ago where this girl was proudly telling that her brother fed a cheeseburger (beef burger with cheese) to his vegan girl telling her that it was vegan and she said that it was the best one she had. This not correct, it is a serious breach of trust and a jackass thing to do. People can be vegans/vegetarians for various reasons such as religion, medical or personal choice. But it doesn’t matter because it is their choice (the same thing applies the other way round as well) and you can’t feed them meat because you disagree with them. What did guy did is inexcusable.
Jani is what she calls a pure non-veg eater but she has never tried to feed me meat without me knowing just like my friends don’t do it either. They do at times make fun of me and I do the same to them which is a healthy relationship. I remember once I went to Tarini’s place and she was cooking fish so I asked her ‘what about me?’ and she pointed me to the flowerpots on the window sill next to her and told me “You are a vegetarian na… so go eat those plants.”
Well this is all for now. Will post more later.
– Suramya