The social side of befriending vegans

475: There just aren’t that many vegans around yet, especially in rural areas or countries where veganism is almost unheard-of. Even in a big city being vegan can be a solitary business, but vegan not only need company of other vegans but needs to fit in socially with non-vegans. And that’s all tied up to how much one promotes vegan issues and Animal Rights. There just aren’t enough of us, let alone enough who are committed to active promotion, and it’s evident that vegan numbers aren’t rapidly increasing. Perhaps that can be put down to bad press. But there’s another force working against us – ourselves! I think our image is of morally judgemental people. Vegan activists often have a loud look. In the past, owing to our small numbers, we’ve had to look stronger by shouting louder; our protests sometimes seem pushy, even sour, even aggressive. Not a good look. But, to be fair, we’re going out of our minds with anxiety over the horrendous things happening to animals. It especially drives me nuts, that kind, intelligent, educated, economically well-off people just don’t want to know. And famous TV personalities don’t help when they visit such places as cattle feedlots and make jokes about the conditions there and let the owner say how happy the animals are. (I recently saw John Doyle and Tim Flannery doing just that on their Two On The Great Divide programme). So it’s always going to be an uphill battle for us to inform people about what is happening to animals, but ours is a communication job. No need to sledge hammer information into people. Especially with the image vegans already have. We’ve all contributed to an unfortunate image and if it is to change it might take some time. If I talk about moving ‘towards veganism’ I’ll be confining what I say to relating facts, and in small enough doses for easy digestion, maybe just enough to nudge an entrenched animal-using lifestyle. For omnivores there are two off-putting perceptions of vegans – our food and our fellow-vegan friends - what we eat and who we mix with. If a diet, for instance, is Animal-Rights-friendly it means we eat foods which are unfamiliar to most people. Maybe that’s not such a big obstacle. One can deal with that. But the big question might be whether one could mix with vegans socially. People may see us as ‘kind’ to animals. No one would object to that. But as soon as we try to convert non-vegans, and take every opportunity to mention ‘our subject’, our image changes. Our stereotypical, ‘shouting protester’-image confirms fears about mixing with us socially. In a free-willed, individualistic society, we might have a good cause but may seem like ugly people. Each animal advocate has to work out their own way of speaking strongly without being boring or pushy about it.