This is beginning to remind me of why another friend and I don’t talk anymore.
Me: Oh man, I’m so tired.
Her: Oh yeah? I’m more tired than you are.
Me: Ugh. I had to wake up at 5:30 to finish the stupid project I didn’t get a chance to finish last night.
Her: Oh yeah? Well, I had five projects to finish last night, so there’s no way you’re more tired than me.
Me: I have a full day of classes today. It’s just so tiring.
Her: Well, you can’t be tired because I have more than a full day of classes today. If anyone’s tired, it’s me. Not you.
Me: Riiiiiiight. I have to go now.
Has it occurred to anyone that everyone gets shit?
Uh?! Wotchoo talking about? You started the whining about your hypocritical “veggie” friend, in this thread.
And in the example exchange you provided above, not only did you start the a-moanin’ an’ a-whinin’ (again), “Her” did seem to have more reason to be tired than you.
How does this all gel with your sage-like insight that “everyone gets shit”?
Plus, I frankly I struggle to believe that you faithfully recorded the exchange between you and carrot munching bitch, I’d bet a dollar to a cent that you have indulged in the occasional “veggie-baiting” in your time. Of course, I’ll take your word of honour that I am wrong.
I’m a piscovegetarian who often shortens it to vegetarian, and I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it.
When I was an ovolactovegetarian, I shortened it as well, and I didn’t feel guilty then.
I really, really don’t think that I’m interfering with yosemitebabe’s or opalcat’s diets: I think that claim is a big fat stretch.
However, if I tell someone I’m vegetarian, it’s a short way for me to ensure that I don’t get served chicken or red meat. And that’s pretty important to me.
The alternative is for me to go into a detailed discussion of my diet, which is often inappropriate. “Yes, I eat fish and shellfish, but I do not eat chicken, ducks, pigs, geese, cows, or anything warmblooded. But I do eat dairy and eggs.” Easier in many circumstances to tell folks I’m vegetarian.
What’s more, I’m piscovegetarian for ethical reasons. I generally ascribe more rights and more protection from harm to a being the more capable it is of suffering. And the stronger an individual identity a being has, the more capable it is of suffering harm to that identity. Thus, pigs (fairly intelligent creatures with a strong sense of identity) are completely off-limits to me, other mammals almost as much so, birds less so. By the time you get to fish, you’ve crossed the line into beings whose cognitive functions are so limited that I don’t feel bad about killing them for my pleasure. I make a brief exception for octopodes (no eating them), and will happily eat just about everything else.
The line I draw is arbitrary. But then, I don’t ask anyone else to draw their line in the same place. I don’t preach at people, and normally I don’t talk about my diet with them.
I was complaining about my friend as an individual. This thread seems to have evolved into a “Who gets more shit? Vegetarians or Omnivores?” debate between Miller and lezlers (sorry about singling you out). Truth is, vegetarians and omnivores both get shit, so there’s no point in battling and saying “Oh yeah? Well, my brother/sister/father/mother said --” back and forth.
(Then again, this is the Pit, so there doesn’t necessary need to have a point. Just ranting. If they want to continue, it’s fine by me)
It wasn’t more the fact that she was more tired than me, but the fact that I couldn’t be tired because she was.
My point is, even though this is probably irrelevant, Miller and Lezlers’ debate about who gets more shit (vegetarians or omnivores) is going around in circles?
“My brothers make fun of me for only eating vegetables”
“Oh yeah? My father makes fun of me for the way I like my steaks”
vs.
“I’m so tired today. I had to wake up at five.”
“Oh yeah? I’m more tired than you are because I had five projects to do last night.”
After the first few times, it just gets into a circular debate about who gets more shit.
Sure, one might get more shit than the other, but in the end, both get shit, and shit is shit no matter how much you get.
You don’t have to believe me. After all, the internet is not a very credible source, and I certainly don’t have a cite for my views on my personal life. You can choose to see it my way, or not. This is how the internet works and I’m not going to hunt you down and “make you see it my way”.
I’d like to point out though, that when I do have lunch with CM bitch (which is rarely) we do make accomodations for her. It’s not like we invite her along to a steak house when we know she’s going to join us. And from now on, I don’t see why I have to have meals with her at all. I like eating without someone shooting daggers at me.
In light of your uncalled-for reasonableness, can I suggest that it might be useful if you approach your friend away from lunch and tell her how you feel (and maybe she can “get of her chest” her hang-ups). Of course, it’s easy for me to say, she ain’t going to hunt me down and “make you see it her way”.
I think that everyone here would agree that 7 up yours’s friend is being pitted not because she is a vegetarian but because she is a hypocritical asshole. I dont care what anyone eats, just dont mess with what I eat. I am a lifelong member of PETA People Eating Tasty Animals and I dont go around and laughing my durn fool head off just because some person subsists on a regimen of plant matter. You eat what you want, and let me eat what I want. I dont particularly like my meals to become an emotional debate on the previous lives of my food. Lets face it, anything on my table being presented for me to eat is already dead! too late to save the poor sucker now, so I might as well eat it while it still tastes good.
I draw the line. No air breathing mollusks or insects. I dont care how tasty escargo is. ick.
I will not eat anything that can bite, pinch or poison me after its dead. I may have second thoughts on anything that might be able to taste me while I was eating it, So I dont (voluntarily) eat anything alive. Freshly dead, definitely but if I can electricute the sucker with some paddles and it starts pumping blood again on its own, its going straight back into the kitchen for more cooking.
You probably aren’t interfering with the ease of our vegetarian lives if you DON’T:[ul]
[li]Order a fish or chicken meal and insist between bites that you are vegetarian.[/li][li]Tell people (or argue with people), insisting that “vegetarians can eat fish” (etc.).[/li][li]Basically, present yourself to the world as a “vegetarian” while making it very obvious that you eat fish.[/li][/ul]
Because if you do any of those things, then people like OpalCat, lezlers and me have even a harder time trying to explain that NO, really, honestly, vegetarians don’t eat that stuff, at least not in the USA. That NO, it’s not generally considered an accepted ingredient in the American vegetarian’s diet.
Yes, I know, some people do think that vegetarians can eat fish and call themselves vegetarian. But as I mentioned before, it’s certainly not in any way a mainstream understanding of the definition (as proven out by the lack of fish in prepared vegetarian foods, vegetarian cookbooks, magazines and restaurants, at least in the USA).
However, if you order vegetarian meals when out, just to save yourself the hassle, but when asked by inquiring minds, say, “Actually, I’m a pescatarian.”, then I think that’s all fine and good. Absolutely nothing wrong with being a pescatarian, at all. I have zero problem with you eating fish–I really don’t give a damn. I just don’t want there to be any further confusion amongst non-vegetarians about what we can and cannot eat. It’s bad enough that we are bugged and asked to “make this one exception,” and so forth. But when someone has met a “vegetarian” who insists that vegetarians eat fish, when this goes against pretty much all mainstream thought on the subject, yes, it does make it more difficult. (Did I use “mainstream” enough there? I hope so!)
And? Life isn’t a fucking contest all the time. Two people can both be tired with no regard for which one has more “right” to be. People who turn everything into a big battle to see who is more whatever, who has it worse, blah blah whine whine, get irritating really fast.
