Dealing with negativity

Question

Hi all
I have been vegan for about 6 months and it feels so right to me. I’m not one of those preachy vegans and feel everybody has the right to eat what feels right to them. However I’ve noticed that when at a social event, people feel the right to criticise me and my choices and make derogatory comments despite me not saying anything negative to them. Can anybody offer any advice on how to deal with this? At the moment I feel I should stop being vegan at social events just to stop this negativity which I don’t want to do but I feel stuck. Can anybody help me on this one?

poivron · Answer

Definitely don't stop being vegan.  The fact that others attack you is a good sign.  It means your mere presence makes them uncomfortable by reminding them that they are not living their lives in accordance with their values.  The more they attack you, the worse they will look.  Don't attack them back; be gentle and polite.  By being vegan, you are showing them that: (a) it's possible to live one's life according to one's beliefs, and (b) vegans are kind, gentle, and reasonable people -- not the extremists we are said to be.  Just hang in there, and remind yourself that every single day you are vegan, you are saving animals. 

Here is a video I found today, which you might find helpful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu3z74jBPDk
It's about effective vegan advocacy.  It explains why non-vegans respond the way they do, and how best to deal with that.

ForestNymph · Answer

Why would you stop being vegan because other people are judging you? Would you cast aside your family, hobbies, college major, career, love interest or religious beliefs just because some other people didn't like it?

If you're truly vegan it is part of who you are. I would guess that you must have a passive demeanor if people say critical things to you. It usually doesn't happen to me, but I am pretty assertive about being vegan, I don't force it on other people but I'll talk about it openly and don't apologize for it. 

It seems like people are trying to bully you. Don't let them. Even if it's your own family you can stand up for what you believe in.

poivron · Answer

ForestNymph, you may be strong and tough, but not everyone else is, and the vegan movement needs sensitive people as much as it needs assertive people. 

When someone is nasty to someone else, the fault is with the person who is being nasty, not with the person who is the recipient of the nastiness.  Many of us have been confronted with hostility at social functions with non-vegans.  That does not mean we "have a passive demeanor" or that we have caused the hostility through some flaw in our personality.

happah10 · Answer

If i could go back and do it all over again, there are some people i would never have told that i had gone vegan.  I just passed two years mark having a Plant based vegan diet without a single slip up. I don't care what people think of me because of my diet but I get blamed a lot for not wanting to eat at a lot of places because I'm vegan. It would be so much easier to just play dumb and say i just don't like those restaurants. 
I get blamed now for us not having Thanksgiving dinner just because i won't eat the turkey. I'll eat everything else but don't want the turkey so Thanksgiving dinner was cancelled and blamed on me. 

It's a little like staying in the proverbial closet only nobody would ever have to know.

akshay · Answer

It saddens me when people think eating animals is a cool thing nd ths r the only kind of people who makes fun of vegans

akshay · Answer

Even m not a preachy guy but if I come across any such person thn god bless him

DavyKOTWF · Answer

Tell them, "Jack Lalanne ate like this for many years.  Are you healthier and more active than he was?   He lived to be 96 and was active right up to his passing."

rockyroy · Answer

Definitely don't deal with vegan and why would we stopping vegan while other people judging you.why will you aside from your family, hobbies, interest and religious belief because of just other people don' like it.its not a matter of negativity its matter of your choice and also humanity.

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