To expect my friends not to make snide comments

[Jbop]

About me and DH being vegetarian?

We "converted" about a year ago on mainly ethical and environmental grounds. I will answer questions about why I am veggie if asked but am conscious not to seem preachy as know how annoying that is.

Last night we went to friends for dinner. Mutual friends (also attending) gave us a lift there. As the hosts have a young baby we came to the agreement that each couple would make a course each.

Knowing that some of our meat eating pals find doing veggie food a bit of a pain we offered to cook the main and DH and I spent most of the afternoon cooking various dishes.

Prior to the evening there were the usual jokes about stashing peperami in pockets to get through a meat free meal, and how we were going to make mung bean and lint surprise. Ha ha ha etc.

We get in the car to set off and our friend makes a comment about having to stock up at the butchers on emergency meat earlier in the day. I laugh it off.

During the meal we are asked the usual question - do you think you'll always be vegetarian? And if you have kids will they be vegetarian? Which our friend (the host) asks us every time we eat together. This was accompanied by remarks about how she feeds her baby meat every day so he's healthy and how sickly her friend's kid looks (who - you guessed it - doesn't eat meat)

It's been a year now and I'm bored and to be honest quite upset by this. I feel like telling them how much their constant comments offend and piss me off.

These are meant to be our closest friends. And I'm not even going to start on MIL's comments about it...

Am I being ridiculously over sensitive?

They liked the food we cooked...

(long time lurker, first time poster so please be gentle...)

YANBU. It'd piss me off enormously. It's not as if vegetarianism has just been invented or is unusual either. Or do these people just have very small minds?

I don't think yabu but I think people are curious and a bit fascinated and that's why you get all the comments. I am a veggie and have been for 25 yrs and STILL get this. It doesn't wind me up anymore as I am used to it. Whenever we go to a bbq I wait for the inevitable "oh, whose are the veggie burgers" and off it all starts.... I am pretty chilled about it, totally happy with my decision and happy to explain my reasons etc. Occasionally I will get some dickhead (usually male) lecturing me about all the reasons that not eating meat is unhealthy, however I am pretty clued up and usually manage to run rings aroud them and end up making them feel silly (which is kinda fun!).

Just see it as a chance to put youur views across and don't let it get to you

YANBU. Tell them you're getting tired of it. My mum used to be fascinated that DH is vegetarian (isn't it odd? what do you eat then? etc) but got bored in the end. Took a few years though!

Agree with pandemoniaa, yanbu. Do these people never eat a meal without meat?? They are being weird, many many people are vegetarians.

This is just it Pandemoniaa - they're intelligent, liberal, open-minded and lovely people, most of the time... And we're actually trying to do something positive by not eating meat/fish.

I'm not a vegetarian any more and your post is making me wince!! A year??? I'm amazed you haven't cracked and started being incredibly cutting when the "jokes" start.

Are they trying to bore you into becoming meat eaters again? Or are they the type who think tried-and-tested jokes are a way of establishing familiarity and a kind of private language of community (rather like Christmas decorations that come out like family members every year)?

I think you're going to have to say something like: "OK. I think it's time to declare Open Season on new jokes now." With a big smile but a dangerous flash in your eyes.

They are also coming across as being a leetle defensive. Vegetarianism is not at all strange these days. At all. I live in a pocket of London where enormous numbers of the restaurants are vegetarian or mostly vegetarian (lots of Indian & Sri Lankan restaurants). So they are being a bit odd.

YANBU. It's tedious. I have been known to be equally snide back, implying that perhaps if they had a wider social circle and got out a bit more then they'd realise that being veggie isn't particularly unusual. Don't really recommend that approach, though (although it was bloody well true).

That is so weird, who sane gives a Fig what other people do and don't eat? Cares that much, anyway. Are they always so nosy about your life? Do they find it difficult to know what to cook when you visit, is that why they go on so? (I did have that with MIL when I was veggie, and I found it strange that she could get so het up about it, but had to respect her generation, desire to be the best hostess, etc.)

Or are you really being quite pushy in your views? Just trying to figure out what they're side of things might be.

YANBU- i don't understand this reaction at all, or see the need for it. I go between meat eating, vegetarian, and being vegan and i get the same said.

Mind you i get the same sort of thing when i go tee-total around drinkers, which they know that i only do for health reason,but it still produces negative reactions from them.

YANBU. I am a meat eater myself but I would never go on at vegetarians about what they eat. When vegetarian friends come around for a meal I either make two variations of the same thing or do a veggie dish. Depends what the balance of veggie / meat eaters there are. It's not exactly difficult is it?
TBH I can't understand why anyone would think they were being funny making such jokes.
You didn't make mung bean and lint surprise though did you?

YANBU I think your friends cannot understand how you have both changed to being meat free in your diets, even though you have discussed it. I think you should tell them that when they make remarks about your choice not to eat meat, it doesn't feel nice, and you'd simply like them to stop.

Make sure they realise you mean business via your intonation, eye contact etc. Do this together. The very next time it is mentioned say look I've told you how I/wefeel and I'd like you to stop.

If asked a question your response could be that it is not up for discussion. I think it will take courage but now they are crossing the lines of respect between so called close friends. If you lose them, so be it! Are they good enough for you? What you think of them in this scenario is more important IMO

Good luck.

I get sick of starving when I attend courses at work when all the meat eaters get in the queue first and gobble up the veggie options.
Perhaps it would be better to ask if a veggie option is preferable rather than 'are you vegetarian?', because inevitably people who are not vegitarian by choice cannot seem to resist the meat free option when presented with it.

I do find people are more enlightened these days though so your friends attitude is a bit 'old fashioned'.
I remember 20 years ago being asked by a peadiatrician what we did for protein and when I told her we had wholefoods, plenty of pulses and dairy, she promptly repeated the question. We had this strange circular converstation, where she kept repeating 'yes but what do you do about protein?', before I realised she was ignorant and not deaf!

Thanks for all your replies.

We can be quite piss-takey with each other but it's the constant repetition of it, and the more serious questions / implications that we are unhealthy or "wrong" or that it's just a phase that annoy and upset me.

I think the fact we've known each other for 12 or more years but only went veggie last year is probably why they find it so hard to swallow.

The host is also a farmer's daughter so was probably brought up to think meat was the be all and end all.

I think next time we end up eating together and the usual comments rear their heads I will make a polite but firm point that it's getting a bit tiresome.

Ragged - yes, mil I can forgive a bit more as she has a certain repertoire of food she likes to make and is also quite old school. She also makes amazing veggie food! I try not to be pushy but I'm not going to say "oh I don't know why I'm veggie, silly old me, such a fussy git aren't I" either.

DerpPurple - couldn't get enough lint so we used plain dust instead.

YANBU. It gets very tiring - my partner and I have been vegetarians for getting on for 20 years, and I still occasionally get someone (as someone said up the thread, almost always a middle-aged man at a dinner party) assuming I cry over the ickle lambies and bunnies being eaten, and making Jolly Banter about how carrots scream when you pick them, and haven't they got rights too, ho ho.

They tend to shut up quickly when I point out that I grew up in the country killing chickens and seeing animals off to the abattoir, and eating sheeps' heads and pigs' feet, and that I have no issue with people eating humanely-reared and slaughtered meat, or wild meat they have hunted. Also by the fact that my partner is a brilliant vegetarian cook.

I think Birdsgottafly is right to link it to being teetotal - choosing not to do something that's generally considered 'normal' in our society makes some people (who do the thing in question) very uncomfortable. I used to get a similar response when we didn't own a TV. There was a lot of foot-shuffling and mutterings about 'setting up as an intellectual' with the implication we thought we were better than people who watched Eastenders.

The vegetarianism issue that's kind of annoying me lately is apparent astonishment that we aren't planning to feed our baby (due in the spring) meat when he starts on solids!

Ah! A farmer's daughter! Living in a very rural area and knowing a lot of farmers, I have to say that some of them are rabidly anti-vegetarian. To a quite ludicrous degree. Admittedly, they see a choice of not eating meat as a direct attack on their livelihood, which is ridiculous but while your friend is almost certainly nowhere near as unreasonable, I suspect she has (even subconsciously) inherited something of this attitude.

I've been a vegetarian since I was a child and I've never, ever come across this. Friends who've hosted dinner parties have made a vege alternative or just used it as an excuse to try out a full vegetarian meal. I don't knock about with a load of yoghurt-weavers either so maybe I've just been lucky.

Whenever they repeat themselves, look at dp. One of you yawns and the other says "Deja vu or what!"

Or, come up with a stack of judgy questions to ask them - if the parents breastfed, question them in detail about why exactly they chose that. Or disposable vs cloth nappies. Doesn't matter as long as you put them in the same position of having to defend their decision in the face of an onslaught. If they realise and stfu, keep them If not, cut doen the time you spend and make sure they know ir's because you no longer feel welcome!

It sounds as though the fact that you've only relatively recently converted on ethical grounds means that they're taking it as an imagined criticism of their decision to eat meat. If you'd always been vegetarian you would probably come in for far less stick. Doesn't make it right, but it might explain the attitude. I think you've been tolerant long enough-time to get snippy the next time someone has a dig. They'll soon stop!!

I like PurplePidjin's response!

I sort of know how you feel OP, having a lifestyle that's in any way "different" from the majority tends to bring out this irritating behaviour in others. I'm not vegetarian, but what makes dh and I "different" according to others is that we're non-drivers.

We're happy with this btw, and as we've pointed out to people, "Think of all the taxis/buses/trains you can take for the price of a car!", I'd say at probably 3 out of 5 social gatherings we get bombarded with questions, "But how do you food shop/take dc's to activities and friends/what about the school runs when it's raining?". Etc etc.

Our stock answer is something like "Oh we easily manage, we pay for transport as and when we need it so don't see ourselves as NOT having any, iykwim". It doesn't stop people questioning though and like you with people's "vegetarian" obsession, we're also totally bored with people's non-driving one!

I think you do need to just tell people to stop hassling you, but depending on how assertive you are this may be hard. I'm not assertive enough btw. Dh is more so, he doesn't want to offend/upset people but as he says, won't be made to feel like a second class citizen!!

Tell her you know someone who has a veggie toddler (me!) and that not only is he incredibly active, he is very heavy, quite tall and has rarely been sick since he was born.

However, he does have the occasional sausage in my mother's because, 'he was looking at your dad's and he quite liked them. HAve you had lunch? I've got some of those beans with little sausages in. He'd like those whouldn't he?'

YANBU at all, it would really annoy me to be getting constant comments and 'jokes' like that. Especially rude when you've gone to the trouble of cooking for them!

They also make themselves sound quite ignorant and outdated. It's not at all unusual these days for people to be vegetarian, or to prefer not to eat meat for various reasons (I'm assuming you're in the UK, appreciate in some countries it might be more unusual, but still not unheard of!)

Astronaut that sounds like my gran when i was a veggie teenager, she'd buy a nice dessert to have for Sunday lunch and be all huffy when i wouldn't eat it. 'It's only a little bit of gelatin'

Yes, Nana, but a whole cow still had to die to make it...

We were vegetarian for many years due to not being able to afford 'proper' meat.
It never failed to astound us that friends who considered themselves cosmopolitian, well travelled sophisticated foodies would crack all those same meaty comments. Next time they invite you, accept and then insist that you will only eat dishes containing free range lobsters.

I'm a lifelong veggie because of growing up on a farm and smallholding myself later on. I'm informed enough to make and defend the decision but I do get tired of being backed into a preachy corner - basically bombarded with silly 'what, do you want us to set all the sheep free?' or 'Hitler was a vegetarian you know' until I am FORCED to have a wee rant. Otherwise I prefer not to bang on about my choices.
Unless your host only uses guaranteed British meat/animal products, vegetables and fruit or produce she's raised herself, I don't buy the 'farmer's daughter' argument either. Most of the meat and animal products consumed come from factory farms and many of those outside the UK. Bollocks to supporting farmers, the money for her pork chops probably lines the pockets of shareholders in the Netherlands.