They shoot vegans, don’t they?

This vegan can’t catch a break. Doomed to a life without a mate because I WON’T EVER DATE another non-vegan. Doomed, because solo women are missing out on something, right? Besides sex and compromise. In general, solo, childless women are looked on as selfish non-breeders with impossibly high standards.

I recall the DC matchmaker who balked at my desire to date vegans only. I was admonished for “limiting” my already small pool of prospective partners. Why must they be vegan? For the same reason non-smokers, Christians, and non-smoking Christians want to date other non-smokers, Christians, or non-smoking Christians–I want to share my mind, body, and life with someone who shares my values.

Being a divorced woman of a certain age with Rheumatoid Arthritis, dentures, and gray hair (yes, I’m letting my natural silver mane grow long and wild) isn’t enough of a disadvantage? She didn’t say it but I knew she was thinking it. Why be so picky? Veganism’s kinda, you know, extreme. You’re never going to find a VEGAN man in DC. It’s almost impossible to find a man in this town, period!

No, I don’t think veganism’s extreme, unless you think striving to cause the least amount of suffering in the world by eating peaceful food is extreme. As Christian-y as this country is, you’d think we’d all be vegans. Am I alone in experiencing the word, “peace,” being tossed around like confetti when I attended church? Or finding it incongruous that I sat down at tables laden with dead animals as I bowed my head during prayers of thanksgiving and peace? I’ve watched animals being slaughtered. Lined up for slaughter. Their fear and struggle to escape is tangible. Their cries haunt me. There is nothing peaceful about it.

I know what peace is since becoming a vegan. I didn’t know it as an earnest, baptized Presbyterian of over twenty years. Now I’m agnostic. I don’t think there’s a God. If I believed one existed, I wouldn’t worship it. Why would I worship someone who allowed such suffering in and of this world? And if I wouldn’t worship the “Creator,” why would I share my life, or fridge, with a mortal who supported said suffering?

But because veganism isn’t mainstream, because it’s “restrictive,” “elitist,” “unhealthy,” unsanctioned and disavowed by church, state, BigBanks (as if there’s any other kind), BigAg, BigPharma, doctors (most of whom receive gifts from BigPharma; check out yours at https://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/), hospitals, and schools, I’m supposed to date meat-eaters, even though their value systems and mine don’t mesh on this most basic and precious level.

No.

So I’m writing again. And I’ll practice my audition piece. Learn Spanish. Move closer to my tribe. Pay off debt. Travel. Grow food. Grow. Share it. Share it all.