I don't hate vegans. I even dated one for a while. She would eat veggies, I would eat meat. It worked because neither of us were dismissive of the others choice.

I do hate being preached to. I think most people do. Many of my encounters with vegans were ones where they were very hostile to me. For just not being vegan. I wasn't going around telling them veganism was bad or that they were a terrible person for being vegan. I have been told that by vegans. That I am a bad person for eating meat.

I have to eat meat I have always had a high metabolism. At various times in my life my maintenance diet had to be at least 3,000 calories. Plus of course any additional food needed for non maintenance activities. Additionally I'm allergic to soy. This means that it would be nearly impossible for me to have gotten enough food without eating meat. I am pretty certain that if I had not eaten meat and animal fat. I would have died as a child, or at best had serious issues with nutrition. I was well fed as a child. I could eat as much as I wanted, still many of my memories of childhood were ones of hunger.

I even explained this to someone once and they responded by saying "well you didn't die" and then heavily implied they wish I did. As if me not dying made my point invalid.

This is why I am skeptical of vegans and vegan ideology. It is often toxic, and actively tries to hurt and shame people. Even people like me who are effectively choiceless in regards to eating meat.

Often even non-militant vegans will allow this behavior. I know how frustrating it can be to be told you need to police your own community. Though that doesn't mean it's okay to allow bad behavior amongst your peers.

My experience around any opinion where there is a default option, the vast majority will accept the default without thinking. Then when presented with an alternative by someone who has actively chosen to not chose the default, people become highly defensive as if they did do their due diligence, whether or not they actually did. Depending on where you live, the defaults change, but being that humans are tribal, differences in lifestyle naturally create friction. In parts of America, you drive an SUV, use an iPhone, and eat meat. Whether or not they actively or passively chose that lifestyle, when someone doesn't conform to what is expected there will be friction. How people react to that friction is up to them, but again, the default is to be critical of them and encourage conformity.

I can't stand the proselytizing powered by privilege on so many planes. Whether it's cost, availability, or time, people have many reasons for being mUrDeReRs. Nobody likes being condescended over things that are barely in their control as it is.

I have nothing against veganism as a dietary decision, I'm actually seriously considering it for health reasons and for easier food preparation.

I am sick of veganism as a moral high horse, especially with hypocrisy in the background. I have a friend constantly ordering stuff, including vegan ingredients, from Amazon of all places. If he's going to low-key admonish me for hurting animals, I'd expect him to care about the Amazon warehouse employees to a similar degree. Unless it's all just posturing.

Vegans simply existing make people feel uncomfortable, so defense mechanisms in the brain trigger.

Since it’s an ethical stance, and people at least deep down know that killing innocent animals for 5 minutes of taste pleasure is wrong, but they don’t want to change themselves.

So the brain tries to rationalize how it’s definitely not wrong and really the vegan is wrong, and/or demonize the position to shield itself from the discomfort of knowing.

Basically psychological defenses kick in to defend unethical behavior that someone highlights by simply existing.

Wait til people find out you don’t drink alcohol! 🤯