I have no friends

[sweet_wheat]

I'm a vegan among omnivores...and they(my acquaintances, not my actual friends) like to make me feel uncomfortable.
While I love my friends and we do have a lot in common, I have yet to actually get to know another vegan here on campus.


Does anyone else feel stranded? Don't get me wrong, my friends are supportive, but there's a gaping space between having respect for a vegan, and actually practicing veganism yourself.


Thoughts? Your experiences?:beatnik:

[RoboMonkey]

There might be a club related to animals or the environment on your campus. Have you looked into that?

[zia]

My husband and I face the same challenges. We have lost most of our friends.

We are thinking about going to an event set up on meetup.com!

We also have a local vegan restaurant that hosts various events that we sometimes attend. It helps to have a place (or places) you can run when you just want to get away from people who put you on the defensive. We choose our vegan restaurant, a second hand book store, the library or even just taking a trip to whole foods (sometimes just seing "vegan" on a product can make you feel not as alone.

Hope this helps!

[sweet_wheat]

there's a group here on campus that makes vegan dinners once or twice a week and i've tried to drag a friend along with me, but so far i've been unsuccessful. (it's a bit of a hike and it's a bit pricy)

have you begun to hang out with different people since you went vegan? do you feel more alienated from your friends? crazy what a difference it makes...i was shocked that my relationships revolved THAT much around food.

[sweet_wheat]

sometimes just seing "vegan" on a product can make you feel not as alone.

Thanks, zia, that is so true!! i live right by a whole foods when im home...i'll admit i've hung there for hours at a time. if they don't want loiterers then they shouldn't give so many free samples, no?

[ripvanfish]

I for one probably wouldn't survive if it wasn't for good ol' VeggieBoards... I don't know any other veg*ns, and it really does get lonely.

[New England Vegan]

I don't have any friends either, but I've become o.k. with it. Not having friends is not the problem; the problem is wanting to have them. If you get rid of the desire to have friends, then there's nothing to worry about.

Other than the contact I'm forced to have with my coworkers just by the nature of having to be there, I wouldn't talk to anyone. The only meaningful face to face interactions I have with anyone is with my wife and to be honest, it really doesn't bother me.
I wasn't always this way, but it seems the more I learned about things, the more I couldn't ignore. This intellectual curiosity led me to be a vegan, and anarchist, an atheist, so there aren't all that many people I'm going to bump into that I'm have much in common with.

I've gone to MeetUp things and they can be kind of fun at first, but there tends to always be one annoying a-hole in the bunch that never misses a MeetUp and they just ruin the whole thing. Well, that's my experience with that anyway.

[Brandon]

I don't have any friends either, but I've become o.k. with it. Not having friends is not the problem; the problem is wanting to have them. If you get rid of the desire to have friends, then there's nothing to worry about.

Your post just reminded me of this:


Sometimes, captain, having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting.

It took a LONG time for me, but I've finally met a few other vegans here. It's cool.

[Gita]

Model your friendships on a different pattern. Why do your friends have to think like you, and live the same lifestyle as you? Most friendships-- indeed most relationships-- last only 3-4 years. The larger the size of the "pool" of friends you have to choose from, the more probable it is that you will meet the sort of friends you want. So, you need volume. If (for argument's sake) only 10% of the people you know will become more than acquaintances, and you want 3 friends, that means that you need to know at least 300 possible friends. If only 1% of people can become your friend (given you seem to want vegan friends your pool must be larger) then to get 3 friends you need to have a pool of 3000 possible friends.

The more people you know, the more friends you have. Also, there is a statistic or observation out that you need to run around and meet people while you have a friend with you-- in the case of an opposite gender friend. So if you are trying to pick up men at a bar or social gathering, you need to have a good looking man with you already. People who go alone to places are not approached, and do not create an atmosphere that makes other people interested. It's like the other guy says "what is so interesting about this girl that she would attract this other guy." Having someone of the sort you want to meet with you already is one strange key to making more friends. So, even if you do not like someone as a "good" friend, go out with them, and go to public places where people meet people-- weddings, bars, meet-ups, not libraries.

[kazyeeqen]

Is there anything Mr. Spock doesn't know?

I go off and on with this problem. It's a college town so even when I make friends a lot of times they leave. I have some friends now, omnis pretty much all of them, and I'm okay with that. They might leave, a vegan might move to town, who knows, but I have my partner and I'll try to be okay with the friendless times as I am with the friended times.

I definitely hang out with, while unfortunately not vegan, alternative-minded people, and it's better than nothing. For now.

[Shamandura]

I for one probably wouldn't survive if it wasn't for good ol' VeggieBoards... I don't know any other veg*ns, and it really does get lonely.

Same here. I get pretty down sometimes if I go weeks without logging on to VB.

[Fromper]

there's a group here on campus that makes vegan dinners once or twice a week and i've tried to drag a friend along with me, but so far i've been unsuccessful. (it's a bit of a hike and it's a bit pricy)
Why do you need to drag a friend with you? Go alone and make some new friends! It's ok to have different friends in different social groups.

--Fromper
:juggle:

[ParrotGirl]

The title of your thread is so sad!

I know one other vegan, but we aren't friends. She is very quiet, and whenever I try to talk to her she seems scared and wont say much more than "yes/no" answers.

It isn't really a problem - it is possible to be friends with omnis! I have actually found meat eaters just poke fun at my diet, or understand but vegetarians seem to get more defensive and argue that it is unhealthy even more than meat eaters. Maybe because they feel guilty that they are only going halfway. I dont know.

[sweet_wheat]

Why do you need to drag a friend with you? Go alone and make some new friends! It's ok to have different friends in different social groups.

--Fromper
:juggle:

I really should, I just have standing dinner plans with a particular group of people every night (oh, the institutionalized life that is living in a college dorm...:tired:)

I would actually consider my volume of friends to be considerably high, it's just that I attend a school mostly made up of kids from suburbia. I'm (proud to be) "that vegan girl". I know a few vegetarians, but no vegans: they live off-campus. Come June I will too! :pibo:

I don't want to ride off the kids who I go to school with. I've found that each of them has a story, for sure, but each of us chooses our battles. We have chosen animal rights (or perhaps the environment or other reasons directing us to veg*nism); they may feel strongly about politics. I've met a lot of interesting people and our passion draws us together.

[Capstan]

I'm lonesome too.

Hooray for VB!:pibo:

[sleepydvdr]

I don't personally know any other vegan. Only through the internet (where there seems to be a lot of them). Are all the other vegans located in the U.K.? I'm only kidding... (but really, where are all these vegans?).

To me, being vegan comes from within. Only you know what your actions are and only you can shape them. Thus, only you will truly know what kind of impact you have on this world. You have to find some comfort in yourself, not other people's superficial compliments.

[shineonyou]

The title of your thread is so sad!

True true!

I was vegan for three years and a half before I joined Veggieboards. There were no other vegans at my high school. I had a long term vegan boyfriend as an undergrad, and I can say that just because you're both vegan doesn't mean you're going to get along better or understand each other any better! I mean, I'm more than just a person who doesn't eat certain things. I have a lot of beliefs and characteristics that I'd like matched up in friends, and I do the best I can in finding those.

I really feel like at least one of my dearest friends understands me, even if he's not vegetarian. And my boyfriend doesn't really seem to notice either way or mind that I taught him to cook vegan. I only really have one good veg friend (he's FREEgan), but we've never really talked about vegan-feelings. Other than it feels good to eat certain foods.

Really, I don't have too much in common with my dad, but he's the person with whom I discuss these things. He's not vegetarian either, but since he was for a long time before it was as accepted as it is today, he knows what it's like. Plus I feel free to pressure him to stop eating shrimp when we go out to eat. He already doesn't eat meat, poultry or a lot of dairy.

I was seriously the only vegan teen in the history of the world whose dad annoyingly bought her TOO MUCH vegan food junk food. So I guess I don't need vegan friends.

[insan0r]

I know about 10 vegans in switzerland and I consider two of them as my friends. All other friends are omnis (and one or two vegetarians). But why should that be a problem? I don't (always) have to come up with my veganism and neither they do. So we can spend a good time together.

But if you want to find some vegan friends my advice: If you live in europe you could try to get in touch with the punk/crust scene, there are many nice people and many of them are vegan or at least vegetarian. Outside of europe I don't know the scene...

[hicuphinduchest]

i still have friends, but since going vegan and coming to college i've changed so much that i don't have any close friends. it really doesnt bother me though because the 2 people in my life that are very close to me are vegetarian now because of my influence, my boyfriend and my mom.

[hicuphinduchest]

It isn't really a problem - it is possible to be friends with omnis! I have actually found meat eaters just poke fun at my diet, or understand but vegetarians seem to get more defensive and argue that it is unhealthy even more than meat eaters. Maybe because they feel guilty that they are only going halfway. I dont know.

i've found that about many vegetarians too! my friend who went vegetarian before me even is so rude to me now that i've gone vegan, i'd rather hang out with omnis than him!

[nwysca]

I completely understand.. I'm a lonely vegan too!

Thank goodness for VB!! I would really love to have someone else around in my life who's vegan, but the only other vegan I know is a friend of a friend and he is moving to another country soon. *sigh* :(

I am just happy that my brother and SIL became vegetarian soon after I became vegan. It makes life much easier for me at family gatherings!

[Saishoku]

there's a group here on campus that makes vegan dinners once or twice a week and i've tried to drag a friend along with me, but so far i've been unsuccessful. (it's a bit of a hike and it's a bit pricy

Do you mean Che Cafe??

Yes, it can be difficult to find others with your same interests and ideals when Veganism is "so extreme" to others. I know very few Vegetarians and no other Vegans in person. All of my Vegan friends are on message boards. My husband is Vegetarian and I'm Vegan, so at least we have each other. But I definitely get excited when I meet another Vegetarian. I tried joining a Vegan/Veg meetup group. but all their meet-ups are on the weekends when I work. :-(

[Doktormartini]

I feel you. I have no vegan friends other than on the internet...it sucks. I've only met one vegan around here and she was in one of my classes but nothing ever happened with that. I know a few vegetarians but they aren't really my friends so...

[Michael]

there's a group here on campus that makes vegan dinners once or twice a week and i've tried to drag a friend along with me, but so far i've been unsuccessful. (it's a bit of a hike and it's a bit pricy)


See if you can help prepare or serve. Chances are the dinner would then be free or greatly reduced. And you can see if someone else who's helping can come pick you up. Most groups on campus seem willing to go out of their way to help people participate.

Your situation was a big part of how VB got started. I didn't know any other vegetarians IRL. Meeting people here made a big difference but meeting other IRL vegetarians was huge.

I definitely think offering to help is the way to go. Even if you can't cook you could help with serving or clean up.

[Tofu-N-Sprouts]

I guess I never understood why I "needed" vegetarians or vegans to be friends with. I have been vegetarian all my life, and vegan for quite a while now, and only in the last 4 years or so have I met any other vegans (and that was through VB!). It's nice, but other than eating out, (which I can't afford anyway) how is it different?

I've always had a large group of all omni friends and it has never been an issue. Maybe our activities don't involve food so much, or maybe I'm happy with the companionship and eat later or just have a salad. Veganism just has never been an issue and since I rarely bring it up, they don't bother me about it... either way, the more simililarities you try to have with people before you attempt to make friends, the more you limit yourself...
You might be surprised, after you get to know them, how much you have in common with people that seem VERY opposite of you.