Clash of opposites

Here are the levels of acceptance put another way:

Stage 1 - the sun is hot, the water cool, who gives a stuff about …”What did you say? Animals? You want me to think about … what?” (With an attitude like that it’s probably not a good time to be talking about animal rights).
Stage 2, where a person might not agree, but admits this could be a serious issue.
Stage 3, listening, re-thinking long-held habits and learning new ones
Stage 4, agreement and trialling the diet
Stage 5, moving towards being ‘vegan’
Stage 6, becoming a political activist and going public.

Stage 6 is the danger zone
At stage 6, the political vegan encounters difficulties with ‘stage one’ people (comprising most humans in all countries of the world). We can fall into the trap of reacting badly when they respond negatively - we meet people who don’t normally talk about ethics or the philosophical issues concerning animals. It’s likely that they don’t normally talk with people like us. In fact already they purposely avoid talking about anything remotely connected with animals. They intend not to ask about food animals or veganism, and that effectively stops us in our tracks. Because they override their own set of good manners (that would normally invite us to tell them about what interests us), they show zero interest. Even a person with a wide set of interests will baulk at this subject. And without invitation we don’t have the right to speak. And if we suddenly bring it up we’ll be labelled as ill mannered, pushy or just plain weird.
With ‘stage one’ people we have to break down the mistrust and dislike that precedes us, by showing an interest, getting to know them, establishing some real trust, and asking them questions about themselves. It’s useless to go ‘crashing their party’ by forcing them to listen to serious and potentially confronting issues.
If there is a spark of interest or even a question, then we’re in business. (That is, unless they’re just being polite and there’s no real interest at all). It’s so rare to be asked an unguarded, intelligent question that it might put us on the spot. When we have to respond intelligently it means answering without using the occasion as an excuse to launch into things we haven’t been asked about.
We might have a lot we want to say but if we don’t get the chance to say it fully, the tiny scraps of information we’re allowed to deliver is nothing but frustrating. We may have become so used to assuming people are either insensitive or purposely closed down on this subject, that we expect the worst. We get exasperated. Then we try to force the lock - we push our arguments - we try to put a foot in the front door, and then to our immense surprise find it closed in our face. The doorkeeper is defensive. Even kids will be sensitive if their privacy is violated. It’s a territorial instinct. For the more life experienced adult being confronted by a vegan activist who is too enthusiastic it’s a case of ‘once bitten twice shy’. Then for ever and a day all vegans, vegan talk, animal rights issues sit behind a door that is closed on us for ever.