Merf. Thinking is Hard.

Whenever evangelist vegans or vegetarians go off into preachy mode..

…. and they have all these hypotheticals about being offered meat or dairy products, or stories about they’re ~so oppressed~ because they don’t eat meat, or hated or whatever, I’m like, whatever.

I don’t eat vegetables. Can’t, not without a violent gag reflex. So rather than try to embarrass myself and everyone else at a dinner table, I just don’t eat vegetables in public. I can appreciate greens; I cook them really well whenever I’m visiting my family. I know what a tasty salad looks like. I just don’t eat it. 

AND YES, I DO UNDERSTAND WHAT VITAMINS I’M MISSING OUT ON.

Every time I’m out with a new friend, and they discover for the first time I don’t like vegetables, 50% of the time (because 50% of the time I am hanging out with normals who have no dietary restrictions or whatever) they will say, in response, “Oh man, I love vegetables.”

The hell am I supposed to say? “Good for you”? 

“How do you not eat vegetables?” Like this: I put aside all the vegetables on my plate and just concentrate on the things I can eat. 

“But veggies are good for you!” Well I haven’t fallen sick in the last year or so, so I think I’m OK. (I wish to add to this, my immediate family members? Who LOVE vegetables? They fall sick hella more often than I do. Your health is not dependent on how many cabbage heads you consume.) 

I would catch so much shit when I was younger, from well-meaning aunties and uncles who were convinced I was going to have health issues when I got older. “Look at such-and-such aunty, she has these health problems because when she was younger, she didn’t eat vegetables.” 

Now that I’m an adult, the response is a hella lot more subtle: they’ll start talking loudly about having no vegetables in some dish or another, because then I “can’t” eat it (I can, I’ll just spend time picking out the vegetables, which I get is bad manners, but still not the same as “can’t eat”), or tell me to pass over the vegetables on my plate, like I’m a small child. But it’s done out of consideration for my preferences, so it’s not like I can complain about it, right?

Evangelist vegetarians come up with hypotheticals about being offered meat and dairy products randomly just to be told off for their diet; I have moments where my social life has suffered because I couldn’t find anything to eat at the vegetarian restaurant menu and ate on my own as a result, because everyone else wanted to eat at that healthy restaurant. 

And in my case it isn’t even just the vegetarians and vegans judging the shit out of my diet, but pretty much anyone who eats a “normal” diet. I can never tell who’s going to judge me and who won’t. I assume I’m just going to catch shit from everyone. Except people who honest-to-God know what it’s like to have dietary restrictions.

So excuse me if I have no empathy for the poor vegetarians feel hard done by. Maybe you should go find some friends who aren’t fucking assholes about your diet. 

I love food. I love feeding people. I don’t get why people call me “picky” because I don’t choose to eat at restaurants that have vegetable-heavy foods (like Mexican or Italian places)… I still eat at a wide range of restaurants! Japanese, Viet, Chinese, random bars, Thai, Indian, pizza places… I just happen to favour the restaurants that are supposedly “less healthy” than some others. 

But you know, I’ve hunted down halal restaurants (because I wanted to eat with my Muslim cousins), I’ve gone looking for places with vegetarian and vegan options, I’ve scouted wheelchair-accessible restaurants. The people who give me shit about my diet? Maybe they’ll go looking for vegetarian restaurants but that’s the end of their concerns.

So.

Whenever I see these posts across my dash, I get all >:{ because fuck ya’ll too, buddy.