As a full-time English Language Arts teacher, the importance of friendship is a theme that I find running through many books. Many stories are resolved thanks to friends having each other’s back when the going gets tough is how – just think of children’s classics such as The Boxcar Children or Harry Potter. Add that to another theme that you often see, facing your fears and good versus evil, and I think that you begin to build an important plot line that any vegan should follow.
Starting out on a vegan adventure can feel like a very lonely journey in the beginning, especially once the initial excitement subsides. Our friends and family may turn on us, as they may subconsciously feel threatened by our newfound identity and lifestyle. Many new vegans even experience anger from their loved ones when they announce that they are vegan now; I know I did. Others can find that previously firm friendships can fizzle out as they feel less connected with old friends when they discover that they cannot discuss the painful things they most want to talk about, such as animal suffering, environmental destruction, and the huge health implications of our traditional western diet.
So like the plot of many books, the main character – in this case ourselves – falls down into a pit of problems which need a resolution. Their usual support systems aren’t there any more, as family and friends don’t understand their point of view or point blank refuse to talk about it, and so our hero needs to look elsewhere for help.
It can be a difficult place to find yourself in. A place where you feel isolated and alone with your new found information. Information that could radically and positively change so many people’s lives, not to mention saving billions of animals from suffering, and being one of the easiest ways that we could help to heal our environment – yet no-one wants to talk to us about it. No-one we already know anyway. Or so it seems, but I will come back to that later.
It is therefore imperative that we start to walk down different pathways in our lives in order to find new friends and new connections who do want to listen to us and talk to us. There are some easy ways to do this:
Local Vegan Facebook Groups
This is the simplest way to get hooked into the vegan network. Once your application to join the group has been accepted, introduce yourself to the group with a nice post about who you are and how excited you are to be vegan now. Try not to ask for advice about questions that have already been posted, as this will probably annoy people. Instead use the search function to search through old posts from the group to find out things like good restaurants to eat at locally etc. Where to buy specific vegan items and which shampoo to use now etc. Check in on the group regularly and leave positive comments on other people’s posts and you will soon make some great connections.
National and Global Vegan Facebook Groups
Much like the local Facebook groups, these online forums are a great way to feel like you have an instant support system. Remember to always be positive and try not to ask questions that have been posted loads of times. i.e. Don’t let your first post be, Hey I’m so excited to be vegan now, how do I do X,Y, & Z? This comes across as lazy and naive and like you’re not going to stay the course. The reason long-term vegans get annoyed with posts like this is because they are so used to people joining and saying, Look at me I’m vegan now, and literally six months later they are back to eating animals. Remember that 6/7 people who try to go vegan actually revert to eating meat quite quickly. One of the reasons for this being that they don’t have a strong support network, so keep listening! Search for Vegan on Facebook and see what groups pop up and which appeal to you, there are hundreds to choose from.
Reddit, Twitter, Etc.
If you aren’t into Facebook, then there are lots of other apps out there such as Reddit, Twitter, Instagram where you can follow others and become a part of the vegan conversation. Be aware that you will get trolls and idiots online. Do your best to ignore them. Don’t engage with them as they are beyond hope. And don’t let them put you off. Also, some vegans themselves can be a bit militant, we are a mixed range of people after all. Again, don’t let those minority of rude vegans put you off. Most of us are very friendly and welcoming.
Meet-Up Groups
A better way to make friends is to try and build a small community of vegans that you can meet regularly for a coffee. Everyone is busy, so this doesn’t need to take huge amounts of your time. But it is so important to your success as a vegan, and your mental health in general, to spend regular time with like minded people.
It can be very draining to spend time with people who are blind to the everyday animal suffering that they are paying for with their daily latte or tuna sandwich. We all need to surround ourselves with people who understand how we feel. Register for free with MeetUp.com and see if there is a local vegan meet up group in your area. There probably is. And if there isn’t do what I did, and start one up yourself at your local coffee shop. It is free to set up, easy to do, and you never know who you might meet. Probably no-one will come to start with, but persist and you will soon have a regular gang of folks to swap recipes and stories with.
Tune In Your Vegan Radar
Another good way to grow your vegan circle is to be aware of those people who are already in your social circle who are genuinely interested in your diet and lifestyle. You will get to be really good at watching out for the signs. People who are eager to receive recipes from you, or who actually watch a program you recommend are the ones to focus on. Share your knowledge with them in a friendly way – better yet give them the gift of a subscription to Vegan Online Academy, and you can soon have a gang of new vegan friends from your old friends. This really worked for me and I now have a vegan best buddy, a vegan husband, a vegan sister, an almost vegan mum, and co-workers who are getting there. I call this my ‘vegan radar’ and you will be surprised who eventually starts to light up the radar. Often times it is people who were very angry or dismissive of your new vegan lifestyle to begin with.
Volunteer With Local Animal Sanctuaries
If you have spare time at the weekends, then volunteering at a local sanctuary is another great way to meet people. This is not something that I can do regularly, but I know people who just love to do this and have created a strong network of vegan friends by becoming a regular volunteer.
Attend Vegan Festivals
There are now so many vegan festivals and events going on that you really should be able to find something in your vicinity; even if you have to go on your own, which I had to do to start with. The buzz of being surrounded by vegans makes you feel like you are in a very safe space and that the opportunity to make new connections is there. People tend to be very friendly at these events and even if you are on your own folks are often chatting in lines as they wait for food, or are happy to have a quick conversation over a shared table during lunch.
Even if you don’t have something locally, it is worth making the effort to travel to one of the bigger vegan festivals throughout the year so that you can hear interesting speakers and make those connections with other vegans. It helps tremendously with the feeling that no-one cares, which can become overwhelming in our day to day lives such as trips to the supermarket where we have to walk through the dead animals in the meat section, or during lunch breaks with coworkers all eating meat based meals. However, when you go to one of the big festivals you can really feel that there are millions of people in the movement and we are all working together to make a change.
Attend Rallies and Marches for Animal Rights and for the Environment
Another thing to make you feel mentally strong and as if you are making a difference is to attend well-organized protest rallies. There are now regular annual marches such as the Animal Rights March and environmental protests such as Earth Day. Don your vegan t-shirt, grab your sign, and take to the streets. Mass protests have achieved tremendous social change in the past, think of the Civil Rights Movement in America, or Gay Rights. It can make us feel extremely positive to be making a difference and actually doing something to enact change in our society and peaceful protest is one of the most effective ways to enact change. I recently attended the climate change protests that surrounded the United Nations climate change talks, and it felt great to be making my voice heard. You should make your voice heard too. It definitely makes you feel more united and less alone in your thinking.
Once you have followed through with these strategies you will find that you have managed to climb out of that lonely pit. Like any good protagonist you will find that you take a few steps forward and then are hit by an obstacle that you hadn’t expected. Maybe you accidentally offend a friend with something you say about veganism, or you put your foot in it at work. But like any hero, you will brush yourself off and look to your friends for support. You will understand that often times it isn’t what you said, it is the other person’s own moral dilemma that causes the upset. You will keep moving forward and you will find in time that you have a good support network that is reliable. This will make a huge difference to you and will help you whenever you do come across a hurdle.
Having other people to talk to who understands your point of view is invaluable at this point in the vegan movement. As we grow we all need to look out and support those new to the network so that we can turn that figure of 6/7 new vegans failing on its head and start having 100% success rate. Imagine how many more vegans there would be in the world then! We would be unstoppable as a movement and that is when everything will flip and change into a vegan world.
If you want to be one of the 1/7 who successfully transitions to a vegan diet, sign up for Vegan 101 today. For $25.00 you will have access to an online course that will guide you through every aspect of successfully transitioning to veganism for life. With the right support, it will be easier than you think.
