Although I’ve dated non-veg’n women, I’ve found that dating someone who is vegan can be a mixed blessing. Initially, when deciding to try dating only vegetarian or vegan women, I fell into a common pitfall: you can get so excited by having this much in common, that often, before true compatibilities beyond what you eat (and why) have been established, such as emotional energies, it’s really easy to quickly go to a physical relationship prematurely. Sometimes that can still work, often it obscures aspects of each other that weren’t known earlier that eventually lead to a dissolution of the relationship. The best relationships, for me, have involved a lot of interaction on different levels for a reasonable length of time before the dance gets deeper.
Another problem comes even under optimal circumstances when one knows pretty much all one thinks he needs to know about a person to be comfortable with the prospect of longer-term possibilities. If, indeed, there are 1 million vegans in the United States (a rough estimate), how many are, well, female, single, in my age range, appealing to me (and I them), and accessible? (trust me, long-distance relationships in their early phases, truly suck and are incredibly demanding emotionally). Not even going near the no-added fat issue! What I’m referring to is that when faced with the prospect of “breaking up” or “downgrading” the relationship, it can be even more maddening wondering, how will I ever find someone so compatible (and preferably vegan) again?
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against dating non-veg’n women, but the preference is definitely for someone who is more or less on the same page regarding health and diet, animal issues being somewhat less important to me in this case, environmental significant, but not critical. Since I generally end up doing most of the cooking, just about all the non-veg’n women I’ve dated went veg.
But how much does the prospect that it’s going to be very hard to find someone as close to what I want from a companion in life again affect small decisions, or opinions that arise in the course of a relationship? How much does this fear lessen judgement or perhaps promote overlooking some aspects of a significant other that one would normally be concerned about? When doubts creep in, and/or there's a communication breakdown, these concerns can re-surface.
I don’t have an answer to all this, and it certainly is situation dependent. The closest I can come to any kind of resolution is trying to embrace faith, faith that, should the relationship end, that the same fortuitousness, the same blessed energies that led us to discovering each other will see to it that the chance or opportunity occurs again, and won’t give up trying.
Loving a vegan woman is absolutely fantastic, and I believe that the energy mix, at least from my own experiences, is much more refined, deep, fulfilling, and wonderful in shared experiences than, in general, with a non-vegan woman. Add in similar "normal" interests, a sparkling intellect, beautiful smile, joi de vivre, expansive heart, and shining personality, and it doesn’t get much better than that.
So, with all this in mind, I sincerely hope I won’t have to deal with the above issues ever again. It really does come down to faith, though. Faith in and for the relationship, and faith that if it isn’t to be, life does go on, and other potential significant others are out there. Beliving otherwise, imho, leads nowhere good.
Life persists.
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