Dating : Ask A Nice Vegan: Help, I Love My Girlfriend and Also Bacon

“Beneath a veneer of any woman’s total chillness there very often lies a storm of swallowed resentment”

Ask A Nice Vegan is a weekly advice column by Summer Anne Burton, a nice vegan who is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the magazine you are reading right now. She can answer questions about any topic that you could use a nice vegan’s advice on, be it food, animals, etiquette, philosophy, gifts, dating, family, weddings,parties, or friendships. Email your questions to advice@tenderlymag.com

Dear Nice Vegan,

I’m not vegan or vegetarian, but my girlfriend is a long-time vegan because she “loves animals too much to eat them.” We’ve been dating for almost a year. She is super chill and non-judgemental, but I still feel guilty when I eat meat around her. We’ve been talking lately about moving in together, but she seems nervous about the idea.

I’m wondering whether it’s going to bother her to have meat and cheese in the house, and also whether my meat-eating is part of what seems to be holding her back when it comes to taking the next step in our relationship. I love her and I’d like to make her happy, but I have no plans to change what I eat. Is this likely to be a dealbreaker for her?

Sincerely,
— I Love My Girlfriend and Also Bacon

The problem I’m having with this question is that I truly don’t know what your girlfriend thinks about your diet — vegans are far from a monolith, as I think Tenderly’s content reflects, and each of us thinks about issues like this a bit differently. I know vegans who don’t consider dating non-vegans because it squicks them out, and I also know vegans who’ve never given the issue much of a thought either way. I suspect based on your letter that your girlfriend is somewhere firmly somewhere in the middle, like most of us.

You say she’s “chill” about your animal-eating, which is honestly a tiny red flag. Beneath a veneer of any woman’s total chillness there very often lies a storm of swallowed resentment. It’s possible your girlfriend truly feels that her veganism is a 100% personal choice and that, though she herself eschews all animal products, watching you chow down on a hunk of dead lamb or factory farmed chicken eggs doesn’t even make her blink. It’s possible! But it seems more likely that she feels like being “chill” is what you want from her, and that she’s worried it’s impossible for her to be honest about how she feels without coming across as a smug and judgemental asshole.

I can’t read your girlfriend’s mind, but I am an ethical vegan who’s dated omnivores, and I definitely didn’t always feel super chill about it! I wished that they were vegan — just like I wish everyone who could easily make that choice would. Without such a belief, I wouldn’t be vegan myself; why would I ever give up sharp cheddar if not for a pressing ethical imperative?! And of course it’s even more pressing when it’s someone you love.

That said, it’s absolutely possible for people who disagree to love each other and live together. Discomfort with others’ ethical choices isn’t just for vegans — everyone makes a different set of calculations about how to balance “right” and “easy” in this complicated, messed up world. Maybe she still orders tons of stuff from Amazon even after she read the article you sent her about their working conditions. Being vegan is far from the only choice that faces us, and no one (NO ONE!) is out there making “perfect” choices every day.

The bigger problem I’m reading between the lines of your letter is less that your girlfriend is vegan and you’re not, and more that you don’t seem to know what she actually thinks, be it how she feels about your non-vegan lifestyle, or for that matter why she’s actually “nervous” (I’m reading that as “hesitant”) about moving in together.

Maybe the latter has nothing to do with the former and is about completely unrelated issues in your relationship? Or she could indeed be worried that her cutting boards are going to be soaked with meat juice. Perhaps she just wants to wait another year before considering cohabitation! I can’t tell, and I get the feeling that’s because you don’t really know.

If the vegan issue is part of her hesitancy, it may not be that she wants you to convert so much as she wants to maintain a home that feels peaceful to her. I know many couples with different diets and lifestyles who cohabitate, but there’s often compromise involved. Some omni partners of vegans agree that they won’t have animal products in the house, but they’ll eat whatever they want when they’re out in the wider world. That may not be a compromise you’re willing to make, but the only way to find out whether this is going to work is going to be to talk to her about it.

Having direct conversations about these issues can be difficult, but the only piece of solid advice I can offer you is that you must start actually talking to the woman you love. That’s the only way you’ll be able to navigate a long-term relationship anyway. And when you do talk about it, try really hard to leave your defenses behind. Listen to what she has to say, and give her the space to be truly honest. She needs to feel like you’re not going to label her as “judgemental” simply because she believes in something.

This is not me telling you to become vegan if that’s what she says she really wants. There is no imperative for you to change because of what your partner believes. But to be a good partner, you do have to listen — and actually care about what she believes in, not just be trying to get what you want. She can tell you the rest.