Nope. OP asked for a opinion, this is the “In My Humble Opinion” forum, and how can one cite ones opinion and/or personal expereinces? :dubious: You expect me to post the name and email addy of each of my friends, so you can verify my life experiences? :rolleyes: Now if you have a different opinion, fine, post yours.
I’ve been a vegetarian for about 16 years, and was a vegan for several of those (considering it again currently).
I was common law married to a non-veggie man for 23 years.
Never had a problem.
Admitedly, the fact that I refused/refuse to handle or cook raw meat made him largely a vegetarian, 
but he still ate meat whenever he/we ate outside the home and I didn’t have a problem with him buying lunch meat or sausage bisquits to consume at home…
my issue was/is the feel/smell/filth (cross contamination issues) of raw meat and the stench that permeated the house when cooking it from raw. (honestly, as bad to a veggie/vegan as cigar smoke to a non-smoker…I was not kidding when I protested that it made me feel physically ill. I once vomitted from smelling my sis-in-law cooking fish in our house, and I could walk into a grocery store and the reek of dead flesh and blood from the meat dept. was overwhelming and VERY unpleasant, no matter how clean it was :()
I did not, like some I’ve known, make a “moral” issue of it…I myself ate meat for the first 28 yrs of my life or so. And while I do feel strongly about the ethics of treating animals as typically we do to produce meat, dairy and eggs, fur, whatever, it was never my only or main reason for going veggie/vegan.
Health, environmental, and personal preference were more or at least equally important.
The term vegan has been taken over by radical animal rights people to the point that it “means” something akin to a religion. I was primarily a DIETARY vegan…I just chose not to EAT anything from animals. I always resented the position that I was not “really” a vegan because I wore leather or silk (mostly second-hand) or had wool rugs or used gellatin-based film or had pets. :rolleyes:
BITE ME, people! :mad: I will call myself a vegan when I don’t eat anything derived from animals if I want to. It is something most understand in terms of diet, not ideology.
I’ve never been self-righteous about my personal dietary choices, unlike many I’ve known. Like religious people who behave in the same way, it is rude, annoying, and the surest way to NOT convery anyone to your point of view. 
Plus, I’ve never felt any burning need TO convert anyone. I’ve actually encountered some hostility from meat-eaters over the years who assumed I felt I was “better” than them or was trying to make some big statement by not eating meat:confused: Um, no, I just am eating what I want to eat, same as you. I couldn’t care LESS what YOU eat, really.
All in all, my experience is that a successful relationship between a vegan and non-vegan is absolutely possible as long as both parties respect the other’s choices and needs and don’t make more of an issue out of it than it is.
And BTW, sexual activities and breastfeeding do NOT constitute a violation of vegan “rules”. I’ve actually encountered a few radical vegans who decided that swallowing semen or breastfeeding their kids amounted to “consuming animal products”. :dubious::smack: Morons, and fortunately NOT representative of the majority!
Smoking is completely vegetarian. What’s your point?
Seriously, vegetarianism/veganism is not always based on “health” concerns, so why should this even be relevant?
Personally, a hell of a lot of non-smokers I know eat meat (and lots of other stuff I wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole due to health concerns). So?
This made me remember something; years ago, at a family Christmas gathering, my mother-in-law kept trying to get me to try this cake she had out.
I was full (from eating from all the veggie side-dishes…I made a big salad and there were enough other options to choose from) so I begged off.
It turned out later that this cake was a “sausage cake”, made by using the grease and meat from cooked sausage, and she’d been trying to trick me, and my SON, into eating it the whole time. :eek::mad:
WTF? She found the idea funny, but I was pissed! What the hell makes some people feel the need to try and sabotage vegetarians, as if they have something to prove? I honestly don’t get it. How is MY personal choice of diet an insult or threat to YOU? 
Some people seem to think vegetarianism is an attack on omnivores. Like, we’re condemning them for eating meat by choosing not to ourselves. So they try to get back at us by attempting to get us to eat meat, thus knocking us off that pedestal we’ve put ourselves on and taking away our moral high ground.
I have to think that these people are very insecure about their own decisions for some reason.
Fortunately, they make up a small - albeit annoying - percentage of the omnivorous population. I don’t care what my friends eat* and they don’t seem to care what I eat, either.
*I do wish, in a general way, that Americans ate less meat, because the meat production industry is terrible for the environment. But on a personal level, I probably wouldn’t even notice or think twice if I went out to lunch with a friend and they got a chicken sandwich or whatever. Not my business.
My best friend from college is a vegan; her husband is not. They seem not to have any problems.
Yes, I know us meat eaters smell different, and really, I have to agree that often vegans smell better.
And yes, you are right in that there are different kinds of vegans.
However, how do you reconcile point #1 with Point #3? I mean, I can’t date a smoker, it’s just nasty. How can you date a meat eater?
Bonito is a type of fish-- though it may not look like it by the time you make dashi broth. The process is that the fish are caught, dried, and then shaved into dried fish slivers; it’s a little bit like the dried fruit in some herbal teas when you think of it.
I’m an omnivore of the “will eat almost anything and is willing to try things a few times to figure out if I like it” variety. This includes vegetables, fermented foods, and offal meats; depending upon when someone sees me eat, they may or may not assume I am vegetarian, and become surprised when seeing me eat something drastically different in the future. I have found that, as long as a person has been vegetarian/vegan during the early part of their 20s, by the time they hit their late 20s/early 30s, the way they handle other people’s diet preferences is pretty laissez faire. Even with that assumption, I’ll ask someone who is vegetarian/vegan whether it’d be a problem if I consume meat in front of them if I have not dined with them previously-- I find that those who do have a problem with it cannot censor themselves and be polite about their objections to my eating habits. It’s not a “vegetarian” thing, though, but a “how can anyone eat things that are not to my liking?!?” intolerance mindset, and I meet more omnivores with this perspective than vegetarians.
I probably wouldn’t have any issues dating a vegetarian, but have no romantic relationship experience with one. I didn’t date a ton when I was single. shrugs
Slight tangent, but it seems like in every “mixed” couple mentioned in this thread, the more-hard-core veggie is female and the less-veggie is male (there was at least one male-veggie/female-vegan couple mentioned upthread and a lot of male omnivores married to female veg*s). Anyone know of any (heterosexual) couples who go the other way?
Just a personal anecdote, but:
Living my whole life in places where vegetarianism is uncommon (Louisiana & Mississippi) … I can’t ever recall having met a male vegetarian. I have met dozens of female vegetarians.
My father-in-law has done that to me a few times at least. I did throw up a couple times upon arriving home, before he called to announce he’d “spiked” my “vegetarian” food, but considering his occasionally lax food hygiene standards, it could well have been food poisoning too for all I know.
And yes, I don’t judge people for being omnivores, but I sure as hell judged him for being a prick.
Laugh was on him - his only grandson, who I’ve known since he was a baby (this one of my husband’s sisters is about 15 years older than my husband is) - ended up going vegetarian when he went off to college. 
Tom: Yeah, the couple I mentioned upthread with the veg who won’t cook meat for anyone is a lesbian couple, so that doesn’t count either way. I was going to mention a former coworker of my husband, but I realize now I don’t know if the guy’s wife is a vegetarian/vegan or not. (Said former coworker is a vegan as well as a dedicated marathon runner, so he’s obviously getting enough good nutrition to keep his body going.)
Have you considered that the people who you know to be vegans are also the people who make sure that you know that they are vegan?
Not everyone advertises their dietary restrictions. People have been consistently surprised when I ‘came out’ as vegetarian (usually when given no choice but to do otherwise).
Your partners were okay with you dating a ton when you weren’t single?
I was male the last time I checked… and dear god, I hope she was a she!
Tangent thread you may be interested in Vegetarian/Vegan and Gender
Sure it could work. As long as neither are holier than thou evangelicals about their lifestyle, it wouldn’t be any different than any of the other myriad differences that go into a relationship.
I know three couples where the man is vegan and the female partner is not - two are pescetarian and one’s an omnivore. Actually, I’m pretty sure some of my other male vegetarian friends are dating non-vegetarians.
Sure they can have a great relationship as long as they are not judgmental of their significant others’ actions.
I have a BIL and SIL who have been married 30 years and are still going strong. He’s the vegetarian (7th day adventist) and have yet heard him complain about his wife, his kids or any other relatives or friends who eat meat. His attitude lies along personal fulfillment…“I can only control myself; I cannot and will not control others”. I respect him quite a bit for his ideals, and I go out of the way to make him feel at home with a good selection of vegetarian entrees when he visits us.
It is possible to hide that you are a vegetarian, after all a cheese pizza is hardly anything remarkable. Anyone with half a brain can tell they are eating with a vegan. I suppose if you have people that you know well but have never eaten with, it’s possible. I have no such friends, we eat together from time to time, that’s what friends do.