It’s fun to have friends who share the same interests and values that you do. Oddly enough, it’s also fun to have friends who challenge your views and beliefs. Strange, I know, but bear with me.

One of my dear vegan friends, let’s call her “Lucy”, convinced her boyfriend, who we’ll call “Skip”, to try going vegan for a month, for the health benefits. Being an open-minded guy, Skip said “Sure, why not?” and stuck to a vegan diet for almost 6 months. We were chalking one up for our camp when he decided that he wanted to start eating meat again. C’est la vie, oui?

Apparently, non! The amount of shit that Lucy and Skip received from our mutual vegan friends was utterly astounding, dear reader. I have not seen such an open criticism of a life choice since I told my mom I was going to major in English and she said she had a refrigerator box in the basement she would let me have at a very reasonable price. Lucy actually had one of our mutual acquaintances tell her that she needed to “be more strict” with Skip. Because, naturally, the most stable and successful relationships that I’ve seen are the ones where one person treats another like an incontinent dog. What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Call me crazy, but the last time I checked, Skip is a grown-ass, free human being who has every right to make his own life choices. Veganism, like most other aspects of a person’s life, is a choice. For some people it’s a choice they make and stick with for the rest of their lives. For others, it’s a choice they try out, decide that it’s not for them and then they make a different choice. But the point is that the choice is theirs. And the fact that the choices you make that affect your life are your own make them powerful fucking choices. Tell me, when have you felt better in your life? When you’ve actively made a choice that you feel good about, or when you’ve had something decided for you and forced on you? Make your own choices, live your own life and revel in the fact that you are the master of your own destiny.

No freaking wonder that people think we’re all whackjob eco-terrorists. Being an extremist is a really piss-poor method of getting people to listen to you. If you’re willing to completely write off a friend for simply deciding that they don’t want to commit to a vegan lifestyle anymore, what do you really value? Are you the kind of vegan who shuns family events where the meat-and-dairy eating members of your clan will be engaging in behaviors you yourself do not approve of? If so, I think you’re going to find that you’re going to end up incredibly lonely in a few years.

At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself: “Do I just want to surround myself with people who think the same things that I do? Or do I want to surround myself with people who make me laugh, make me feel good and above all challenge me and turn me into a better person?” Your answer should give you some pretty clear insight into the kind of person you are.

But no, you’re right. Let’s all do the same thing. Worked out well for the Nazis, as I recall.