sometimes i wonder whether it allows me to use the disabled parking

Friday 25 March, 2011

I haven’t eaten red or white meat for the past 9 years. I’m telling you all this not because I wish to elevate myself above the ignorant masses and place myself upon a throne of inflated self-worth (using a Prius owner as a foot-stool), but instead because it has the unintended side-effect of making people think that I also dance naked around a campfire during the Winter solstice (besides, flames + nudity = tragedy).

I really don’t understand it. I’ve been told stories about how it is perfectly reasonable for a dude to defecate in your filing cabinet after taking him home on a first date (now that’s a topic for a later post), but I admit to avoiding meat and suddenly I’m a step away from severe brain damage. The standard initial response is “really? you don’t look like a vegetarian.” Yeah? Well you don’t look like a fat, middle-class conservative either. Oh wait.

Then comes the attempt to convince me that my outlook on life is incorrect and I’ve been avoiding meat for close to a decade for entirely the wrong reasons. It’s as though they’re expecting me to break down and cry “You’re right! I hadn’t thought of the fact that humans are supposed to eat meat! You are truly smarter than I and now I will bathe in bacon fat to repent my vegetarian sins.”

Most people eventually get over it and accept me like their slightly daft nephew who is the produce of a past family reunion with attractive cousins and too much alcohol. That said, I don’t think my father will ever really get over it. Nine years later and he still offers me a steak at our Sunday night dinners. I conceded to him that I will return to eating meat the day that he tongue kisses another man. He has been looking for a candidate ever since.

Even then, I still have to deal with other vegetarians looking down on me because I eat seafood (yes, technically I’m a pescetarian – shut up). It’s as though there’s this hierarchy of eliteness that you must progress through in order to be the true ethical master. Upon reaching the apogee (level seven vegan) you receive a pat on the back and a certificate for wasting your entire life.