For this particular relationship, I encourage you to be open-minded about it. If a relationship with a non-vegan had some kind of issue that restricted your choices in eating out (assuming the same level of restriction, as some have pointed out ethics trumps taste preferences, it’s true), would it make you want to end the relationship? Really, think about that. Maybe eating out is a really important part of your life, more power to you and it probably wouldn’t work out, but for the average person that doesn’t sound like enough to kill off a new relationship.
Mixed-food relationships CAN work. My boyfriend (carnivore) and I (vegan) have been dating for 10 months (although it’s long-distance so the timeline is stretched a bit), and we haven’t clashed over food much at all. It’s been a little challenging visiting his parents, but only because they make a lot of effort to get things I can eat… to the point that it’s way too much food for me to eat, and I feel embarassed at the fuss. The first time he visited me here, I cooked my normal dishes for him and he loved everything. He still gets cravings for the pasta dish I cooked with Tofurkey sausage. We have lovely dinners out, too.
Then again, he’s a particularly sweet, considerate, and laid-back kind of guy. He’s special, and I know it. I treat him with the same respect. Do likewise, keep an open mind about your fella’s flaws like you would with a meat-eating guy, and if you wanna be with him, go for it.
I’m a vegetarian and he is a carnivore- not really- he hates anything that isn’t beef or maybe potatoes.
We get on fine. It’s hardly something I notice.
He loves my cooking and will actually eat some of the veggie stuff I make, so we have a lot of meals together. And we do eat a lot of restraunt/prepared meals where we can eat different stuff, but that fits our busy lifestyle/crappy kitchen. I won’t cook meat because it just strikes me as so gender-inequal and honestly I have no idea how to do it. I’d NEVER dream of “converting” him. Why should I? Beef is one of his favorite things I don’t have the slightest interest in making him feel bad about it or harrassing him for it. I honestly don’t care. If anything, he’d like to convert me so I’d cook meat and he could eat it.
Veganism is a different…err…animal. But it is totally possible for it to work.
In my limited knowledge of veganism vs. vegitarianism, a vegan just ISN’T going to do this. If they are vegan for political reasons they aren’t going to blatantly support the killing and eating of animals in this way.
And I wouldn’t expect them to.
Like others have said, it can work. Just depends on how “militant” the guy is. In the movie “Supersize Me” the fella (Morgan Spurlock) who ate McDonald’s every day for a month has a vegan girlfriend and she had a couple of objections to his diet but in general she didn’t care too much. I think they are married now.
My sister is a vegetarian. Not on an ethical basis, though: she’ll eat fish and shellfish, and she wears leather. Her husband of many years eats meat. It’s barely an issue in their relationship. It’s all about compromise.
My wife is a vegetarian (former vegan), and I am most definitely not. We made a pact that I would eat what she placed in front of me, or I would cook meat, and make something for her.
This works out well, and has caused me to improve my diet. But my wife is EXTREMELY good about not forcing her heathen vegetarian views on me.
I’m glad, because that would have caused marital strife.
Eli