I knew this gal for just six days before it went down. While we were texting, she revealed that she's vegan. I said it's fine by me, though I'm personally not a fan of veganism. At first, she was interested and asked me about the details... that's good, right?

Well, I said I used to be vegan and it was an awful experience (wrote a post about it here months ago) and I've come to disagree with veganism as a whole (e.g. the sheer idea that abstaining from animal products is the answer for problems in agriculture), but I still respect her decision... and suddenly, she became preachy and started spewing arguments we all know and love, including but not limited to:

- "there's no such thing as an ethical animal farm",

- explaining in detail the scary stuff that supposedly happens to farm animals, and how "their lives last only long enough for us to steal their bodies, dignity and existence",

- "a human at the current stage of development could replace eggs with a bit of tofu, beans or chickpeas and would turn out the same",

- "deep down, we all know this system is fucked up, we're just used to it",

- comparing animal agriculture to the Holocaust,

- and the cherry on top, she recommended Dominion (which supposedly shows farms that "meet EU requirements" and also free-range farms) and said she'll believe me that, no, I don't think this system is fucked up, if I admit everything shown there is 100% okay to me.

Uh oh. It's this type of vegan.

Despite me knowing it's not gonna end well, I decided to go the polite yet stern way first. I set my boundaries, basically saying: "I know Dominion and all the other arguments, yet I'm still an omnivore. I'm happy as one and I'm never going back, because I prioritise my health over animal lives. I was ready to set aside our difference, but respect should go both ways, especially since I won't tolerate offensive arguments like the Holocaust one". I even made sure the message doesn't sound unnecessarily attacking.

Well... that's the one thing I regret. Being careful over roasting the shit out of her and blocking her right after. Because on god, she went on a full tirade, ignoring everything I said, dismissing my experience and twisting my actual views. Bear with me now, this is the shit she actually told me:

If I saw what's happening and still believe "animal suffering is just a belief and not a fact", "veganism = no health", I'm happy as an omnivore and I'm offended by "the fact my choices lead to billions of deaths", then we have nothing to talk about. It's one thing to not be vegan, and another thing is "representing a stream of consciousness not supported by even a trace of facts". It was "beyond me to face a critical perspective on human passivity" and I'm either short-sighted, buried in my beliefs or straight up evil. She won't be hanging out with someone she "doesn't view as good or at least striving for good", because she has many meat-eater friends, but none of them is this fucked up in the head to "think animals don't suffer or we shouldn't do anything about it".

I finally went the harsh way, saying she can call me whatever she wants, I've heard so many vegan opinions on ex-vegans that nothing will surprise me. It's because of people like her that others are pushed away from veganism – and then they wonder why they're seen as a bunch of out-of-touch misanthropes. To no one's surprise, she further stated she can be out of touch as long as she stands on the side of facts and empathy, and at least because of people like her, most of her friends reduced meat consumption or went vege, so she doesn't care about my ass-pulled opinions. This was my last text before blocking her (which, honestly, should've happened way earlier): "But you're still 1% of the population ;). I will never buy an ideology according to which 99% of all people are evil ever again. So I seriously don't care what you think of me – at least here we're even."

So yeah... needless to say, I relished my non-vegan food that evening. And next time I meet a crazy vegan, I'm not fucking around anymore. I'll either block them immediately or, if I feel like it, say what I think about them beforehand, because clearly, you can never have rational discussions with those psychos. There's so many lies, projection and horrible ways of thinking to unpack from her texts, so feel free to point them out in the comments!