Why I Haven’t Eaten Meat in a Month

I’m finding that when one becomes a vegetarian, it’s fairly tempting to not tell anyone at all.  Few things in my life have encountered such unexpected pushback.  It seems like saying I’m a vegetarian somehow sounds to most people like you are saying I’ve decided that you shouldn’t eat meat either.  People get really pissed just because *I” have decided not to eat meat.

But it also seems a tad unlike me to let such a monumental decision pass by unmentioned or unexplored.  I have no intention of proselytizing on the topic, but I refuse to act like it’s not a part of me–no matter how sensitive it might make you feel.

Now for the elephant in the room: my girlfriend (she’s a lot more to me than that word implies, but she’s not my wife, so our culture doesn’t provide us with an ample word for our relationship. ‘Partner’ is nice but comes with its own baggage) Karla is an extremely passionate vegetarian.  A big part of my hesitancy to announce myself as vegetarian are the inevitable insinuations that I was simply doing it because she somehow badgered me into it or that I was in some way forced into it.  I assure you nothing could be further from the truth.  Firstly, Karla is not that sort of woman, and secondly, I am not that sort of man.  Karla made it clear from the start that this was something that was extremely important to her, but that she would never actually ask me to do it.

With that being said, being around someone who feels so passionate about something so often can make issues become your own issues.  As I said, I won’t go on too long about it.  I’m still very new to the scene but obviously there are many, many ins-and-outs and things to be known and whatnot–mainly the horrors of factory farming and our nation’s broken foodborne illness codes.  But it boils down to very basic things for me:

1.  I don’t want to hurt things (people like to argue with this but, again, I’m not asking you to not eat meat, so really, no need for debate here).

2.  The idea that I’m eating the flesh of a dead creature now seems to me a little weird, a little gross, and maybe even a little barbaric.

3.  The last dozen times I’ve been sick I am fairly certain can be attributed to meat.

4.  Meat tastes pretty good, but really.  C’mon.  Lots of other stuff is good too.  You’d be surprised how easy it is to live without it.

So.  There ya go.  I’m a vegetarian now.