Dating a meat eater is like noticing the first scratch on a brand new car. As terrible as it can be, it’s mostly just a sigh of relief. Instead of tiptoeing around every nook and cranny of your newfound mate, and turning a blind eye to any hint of a flaw, it’s hard to sweep their omnivorous tendencies under the rug. Often as early as the first date, either you mention your vegan baking blog (no specific reference here…), or they mention their life-long love for breakfast sausages. Not quite a deal-breaker, but definitely something to note.
So much of dating revolves around food. So if you aren’t lucky enough to have found yourself grazing the grass of a vegan or vegetarian, there are some definite things to consider…
Take for example, my very first boyfriend. Oh to be young.
We met at summer camp. An arts summer camp, in fact, where everything was optimistic, and every inch of mental space was devoted to creativity. The grounds of the camp were used as a military base during the school year (of course…), and on the first day of summer, year after year, we would run around the grounds putting flowers into the barrels of the many memorial canons spread out along the campus. We would read the raunchy messages carved into the frames of our bunk beds left for us by the sexually frustrated cadets, and write flowery stories and plays about the why we thought each of the little vandals were sent to the academy in the first place. If you've ever wondered where my affinity for the free spirit came from, well, it came from there.
My last summer at this creative haven, however, was not spent writing stories and putting on increasingly terrible renditions of Fame. Instead, I met John. And John, of course, became the meaning, purpose, and dedication of my final summer at camp. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that fourteen year old girls are completely insane, and I’m even more sure I don’t have to tell you that I was anything but the exception.
But once we got back home, the magic of summer wore off, and it happened in the amount of time it took to take a single bite of pizza.
Literally.
As always, we had gone to see a movie (the height of sophistication in a fourteen-year-old’s love life), and scandalously decided to take the bus back to my house… and order a pizza (my rebellious phase didn’t come until a little later). Everything was going well until I heard John order “half pepperoni, half vegetarian”.
WAIT A SECOND.
What?
You’re not just going to accommodate me and get only veggie?
Okay... I guess I can handle that. I can’t expect people to morph who they are to fit my own beliefs (or can I…? No, no, I can’t). What I couldn’t handle, I found out very quickly, was kissing someone who had just eaten pepperoni.
I had been a veghead for five years at that point, and my palette had completely readjusted. The smell, the taste, the idea… it was making me a little queasy, and my poor boyfriend was left awkwardly trying to work his way around my half-hearted attempts at enthusiasm. Poor guy. When he eventually got up the nerve (and he was 14 –pat the guy on the back, yo) to ask me what was wrong, my response, of course, was an incredibly mature, “your mouth tastes like death”.
It wasn’t long after this very moment that John had called his brother to come and pick him up, and it wasn’t until four years later that we would date again, and laugh about the irritating but comical things that used to come out of my mouth, and the things that he used to put into his (he’s now a veg –but not because of what I said to him that day we ordered pizza…or so he says).
To this day I am still surprised that PETA didn’t go out of their way to recruit/abduct/indoctrinate me at the early age I began preaching their mantras. I think my love for research as well as my tendency towards compassion has ultimately gotten me far, but my God I could be obnoxious when I was starting to really delve into animal rights. Since then, fortunately, I have become a little more tactful with my comments, and a little more knowledgeable about the fact that you have to choose to your battles. If the only thing going against a potential girlfriend/boyfriend/whatever is the fact that they eat meat –isn’t that kind of a bargain?
Regardless, a gift from me to you/your meat-eating counterpart:
How to Date a Vegetarian
(Contrary to popular belief, yoga mats, dreads/hipster haircuts, facial piercings, and killer granola recipes are ONLY OPTIONAL)
1. Be willing to try new things. This is the single most important tip I can give you. Chances are, if your love interest is vegan or vegetarian, they will appreciate an open mind that ends up sticking with their original ways over a closed mind that doesn’t want to try at all.
2. Do your research. I once found myself in a cab pulling up to a Portuguese meat bar a close friend had made reservations at in New York. The novelty of the restaurant was that they cut meat right off the bone, right at your table. He knew I was a vegetarian. I spent the night pecking at the salad bar and staring at my shoes to avoid the dim sum–esque display of meat and bones constantly circling our table.
3. Believe it or not, people don’t become vegetarian or vegan because they want to be in a constant state of argument with meat eaters. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it’s also pretty safe to assume that most meat-eaters don’t eat meat so that they can be in a constant state of scepticism. First-date debates can be a bit of a buzz kill, and when it suddenly comes up that you feel belittled by my beliefs three months down the road, there really isn’t much to be said. Be honest about how you feel. I made my choice, be happy with yours.
4. Know that vegetarians taste better, but don’t ask. Please. Stop asking.
If you could go back in time to a past relationship or date, what would you do differently, and what would you do the same, in terms of veg-meat-discrepencies?
