Basically title. I might be having a crush on a non-vegan who’s quite possibly also not a leftist. Do you have any advice on this?
Hello!
Great question. I think i have advice, based on personal experience. basically it depends on the quality of the political discussions you can have. I would date them and try to understand this person and their beliefs.
People have sometimes interesting reasons for not being vegans. For instance, you can argue that reducing the overall amount of meat consumption is more important than being radical vegan as soon as possible. Food/eating depends on habits, so radical changes are more likely to fail.
Also, one can argue that abolishing colonialism and capitalism is more important than individiual decisions.
These are just examples to explain why they might have legitimate reasons for doing what they do.
Also, as the left ideology is very broard and complicated, they might not define themselfs as leftist but still share common beliefs. People are probably not neutral, as many people have an opinion on fairness and justice. Also they might not have historical or contextual knowledge, for instance how their society achieved prosperity, they might not know which people suffered for that. They might not have the resources to learn about that or the time or the mental relaxation.
For instance, my parents are not leftists and they don’t read books, etc. because they have a different view of a good life. They work a lot, are very stressed but have much money and from that money, they go on holidays to reduce their stress. But they don’t know that a life with much less money but also much less stress is interesting in a different way, because you don’t need holidays. And they don’t think they can change the world and are basically too lazy/stressed to try.
Also they might have a different class-background, for instance they might be forced to work a lot compared to other higher privileged people, because they don’t earn that much money.
So it makes a lot of sense to talk about that. It makes a lot of sense to understand how people were raised and talking about that is also quite interesting, imho. But my personal experience tells me that the atmosphere of the conversation is very important. Depending on how open you are to the experiences of this person (how they were raised and how that shaped their current political belief and stuff) they might tell you personal things or just silently create a mental wall towards you. They might be shy or feel pressured, etc.
Also, you might want to be careful with chatting as it sometimes is easier to misunderstand people and create the impression of an aggressive atmosphere. Some people don’t want to chat that much where others create huge wall of texts. And political complicated discussions are more imho more interesting in person at least until you know the personality of this person very, very good.
You have asked in another thread if you should be agressively vegan. As a person that once was agressively lefist: i can tell you being friendly and non-agressive is much better.
probably the best advice i can give you is to do what feels good. Listen to your gut feeling/instinct. If you feel good when you date this person then do it.
I’m no relationship expert but I feel this depends on 2 things in general
1 - What are your goals in dating? Less serious and less long term, means politics are less relevant.
2 - How non-leftist are they? Social democrat is probably fine, centrist liberal is borderline, conservative will be challenging in the long term, reactionary is no-go-zone.
Also, no comment on being vegan as I myself am not vegan.
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Love is love, if you both like eachother then your political leanings shouldn’t matter, however they will probably effect the relationship. In my experience if I liked someone and got to know them even in friendship, if they revealed that they were right wing I would be put of even if I liked them. I say go for it and if it works out then that’s great, but if there is any political tension then your feelings might just fade and that’s okay
On the vegan thing I think that they would likely become more vegan if you were in a relationship unless they are a meat lover in which case as with the political tension you would probably lose the feelings you have for them
Make food for the crush, so it slowly will need you.
Is my crush an it?
You didn’t say about any pronoun, I was creative
I wish I could help, but I don’t have enough input. I don’t know how are your relationship with people who like to eat dead animals. I had a friend who was leaning towards vegetarianism, while their SO kept buying meat, this wasn’t a deal breaker but it was another evidence of how they have grown apart etc…
you need to betray yourself (or part of yourself) in order to be loved and chosen.
As long as you don’t feel compelled to betray yourself I think things should work.However the hard part is acknowledging when things aren’t working.
My advice is keeping tabs on yourself and asking yourself how you are feeling
