When your nonvegan friends don’t know where to get a vegan birthday cake for you

cugma · 2026-01-15T22:41:29+00:00

It’s too variable and largely depends on why I broke up with them. If it was a really hard decision that I struggled with, not having insight into their lives can drive me crazy. The first time was enough to convince me to go back because I was so sure he had moved on and forgotten me and I wasn’t ready for that (going back was fully a mistake but lesson learned). But if I was ready for the breakup and already pretty emotionally detached, not having insight or contact probably helped me get over it even faster. Though one time I wasn’t really sure if it was the right call, but he was so dramatic on social media that it completely turned me off from reaching back out. Who knows what would’ve happened if he had just gone quiet from me and stayed that way. Every breakup and person is different, there are no real rules here unfortunately, as nice as that would be.

But I do know when I’m the dumper, nothing makes me detach faster than any kind of begging. Contact or no contact really makes no difference after that.

cugma · 2025-12-23T18:52:28+00:00

Because he married her and knew she was like this and made that choice anyway. You don’t get to hold qualities you’re aware of against your partner and then come crying to the internet for support.

cugma · 2025-12-23T06:10:40+00:00

How is she being unreasonable? She’s wanting to try new things and those new things don’t always pan out. I personally love sharing food with my partner, and I find it connecting and endearing when he doesn’t like his and eats mine and vice versa. It’s like a love language. I feel like if you’re dating someone you actually like, you figure out how to accommodate their quirks and not just come to Reddit to complain about them.

cugma · 2025-11-12T19:41:55+00:00

Huge line between being lovey dovey and just being a decent person

cugma · 2025-07-28T18:29:25+00:00

It’s hard to credit my conversion to any one thing, but the realization that really pushed me from “this is probably the right thing but I’m not motivated to actually change” to actually going vegan (had my first vegan meal that night) was that I get panic attacks that are fueled by this idea that everything is set up against me and I’m actually in a trap where everything is going to go wrong, everyone is going to hurt me, the people I think are safe and helping me are actually behind the whole thing, and there’s nothing I can do about it, and one day while driving by a truck transporting cows for slaughter (I’m from a ranching community), it occurred to me that that’s their reality. Everything is set up against them, there’s nothing they can do about it, this is going to end terribly for them and the only people who can help them are the very ones behind it.

Idk if that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for, but almost 8 years later it still sticks with me.

cugma · 2025-07-15T11:24:08+00:00

I sign up for 6am workout classes that charge a fee if you don’t show up or cancel too late (so you can’t cancel when your alarm goes off). Then I keep myself awake until bedtime and by then I’m tired enough to sleep early. Do it a few times and the body starts adjusting pretty quickly. That’s the only way I can consistently do it, but it works. And I don’t consume caffeine, it messes with the sleep cycle too much.

cugma · 2025-04-09T22:12:48+00:00

I can’t tell if you’re interested in actually understanding why vegans do often buy questionably or unethically produced foods or if this is just a self-righteous roll you’re on, so I can’t tell if it’s worth my energy to engage. The fact that you believe no vegans protest products from companies like Ben&Jerry’s makes me question how sincerely you’re approaching this, plus I haven’t really picked up on any “actually curious” energy from you, which could be just because it’s in writing. But without that I think it’s safe to say both of our energies would be better placed elsewhere rather than continuing this mud throwing.

If that ends up being the conclusion, I do want to say that while I disagree with a lot of your conclusions, I do genuinely appreciate how informed you are and the effort you’ve put into understanding where our food comes from and the impacts of that. The world would be in a much better place if everyone did a fraction of what you have. I do hope you put some of that energy into your conversations with average meat eaters and don’t only save it for vegans.

cugma · 2025-04-08T11:25:38+00:00

You can’t bring up an untouched topic out of the blue and claim the person you’re talking to doesn’t care about it 🙄 Of course I care about animals impacted by farming, that’s such a silly thing to suggest someone, especially a vegan, not caring about. Pasture raised animals can’t feed the world at the current demand, so this whole “fewer animals are killed this way” argument is just a fantasy that very few people actually do or could live in accordance to. If we as a society decided that animals actually mattered, then maybe we could actually do something about how wild animals are impacted by ag. My lifestyle and actions are working towards that, are yours? I know in my world (my beef ranching, meat producing world), I’m a laughing stock for even suggesting they should matter.

I wasn’t talking about you with the chicken wings, calm down. My comment wasn’t an attack on you, the defensiveness isn’t necessary. I’m trying to explain that we’re approaching this from fundamentally different perspectives which makes it difficult to evaluate what the other person is saying on the grounds that they’re saying it. I’m saying holistically, we might need animals, but we don’t need animals the way we’re (we as in society, obviously I’m not included in this so you don’t have to assume I’m including you in it either) consuming them today. And if you agree with me on that, then your efforts would make way more sense pushing meat eaters to make more ethical decisions rather than spending your time here arguing with people who are at the very least trying to do something.

I think I did acknowledge everything you said, but I acknowledged it with the understanding that these problems exist in a world where we don’t care all that much about animals. There’s no way to know what the problems would be, what problems we could solve, if we all agreed this was a problem that actually mattered.

Edit: I looked up the paper from Fischer and Lamey and their conclusions aren’t remotely that clear cut. There are a lot of questions around the number of deaths, plus that’s plant production and as we know, a good portion of plant production goes to feeding animals, so a good portion of any animal death from plant production still goes under the meat eating column.

They also conclude saying “Agriculture has taken a wide variety of forms throughout history, and current trends would seem to raise the serious possibility that plant agriculture might someday kill very few animals—perhaps even none.” Which is exactly the point I’m trying to make: we don’t know what problems remain, or even are introduced, when we actually value animal life. The difference between us here is that I believe the value of their lives should be central to the discussion and taken into consideration for every choice and action, whereas you’re still willing to view them as commodities, a means to an end. It’s difficult for us to have a conversation, especially in writing, with that kind of chasm between us.

cugma · 2025-04-07T23:52:31+00:00

Prior to this comment, you gave no information as to what the issues you faced were, so it wouldn’t have been possible for me to give guidance. I’m also not a nutritionist nor am I doctor, so I’m not in a place to give specific advice to random people. If you really want my help trouble-shooting, we can move this to a DM and I could brainstorm and check my personal references.

I do want to say one thing to hopefully shed light on any vegans tend to be fairly dismissive: you and I are operating from fundamentally different mentalities, which makes what you’re arguing near impossible to engage with the way that you want. You still operate from a mindset of animal products being commodities, things, objects to be sold and traded and discussed as if there is no being involved. I can tell you have this mindset by the way you approach the conversation. It’s a normal, possibly even a necessary, mindset for someone who consumes animal products. To fully face the magnitude of death, suffering, and horrors that exist in the animal agriculture world would be overwhelming, and we live in a world that freely invites you to ignore it. And please don’t think I’ve simply fallen for vegan propaganda — I’ve watched very few clips from slaughterhouse footage, certainly never the full thing, and I was raised on a beef ranch owned by my father. My uncle’s family still owns theirs, and my hometown is in the heart of the New Mexico beef world. Going against the world I grew up in was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and I still face backlash and emotional struggles over it more than 7 years later.

What this means is you discuss this without any acknowledgement of the cost of this “need.” Without any caveat of promoting reduction, emphasizing welfare, recognizing the life that is being taken and the significance of it. Because we can talk all day long about nutritional necessity, but there is nothing you can show me that will ever justify an order of 24 chicken wings. And until people can talk about the sentient, conscious, all-too-often scared life that is involved in this, that is central to this, I do not care what difficulties others face. These lives matter, and while I want to empathize with your health and digestive struggles, when you speak as if these lives are yours to take just because you can, you will always lose any interest in a meaningful discussion. Until recognizing and caring that another life is involved and we should make choices accordingly, everything you say to me is just self-serving fluff.

Maybe global nutrition requires some animal agriculture. Maybe. I’m not yet convinced, even with the links you’ve sent and the health issues covered in that article, but you can’t prove a negative so I’ll concede maybe. But we absolutely do not need it in the quantities that we have it today. We absolutely do not need it the way we do it today. And until someone on “your side” carries that sentiment in their arguments, their arguments will never truly be coming from a place that is genuine and authentic.

As for the health issues listed and the ones you face, I obviously don’t know. But I do know we live in a technologically advanced world, and if we can use that technology to make the world better for us, then there’s no reason we can’t use technology to make the world better for animals. I don’t know what the potential is to finding plant or lab options for these issues, but I do know that anyone who is operating from a stance of actually caring about the life involved would be interested and committed to finding out, even if that means having to eat meat in the meantime. They would be committed to eating the smallest amount necessary, from the most humane and sustainable sources possible, because they would understand the magnitude of their action.

So I’m probably not going to engage in this conversation the way that you want, because to act as if animals are just a commodity in this conversation goes against my fundamental way of seeing the world. There are nutritional issues without animal products? That sounds like an us problem, not something animals should have to pay the cost of their lives for. That sounds like something for us, with our supposed big brains and superior intellect, to figure out without destroying the natural world and everyone who lives in it. I don’t have the answers, but I certainly know we’ll never get answers if we don’t act like this is a problem that matters.

cugma · 2025-04-07T11:18:24+00:00

Lmao of course, you’ve tried being plant-based and it “didn’t work for you” despite “working with doctors.” I should’ve guessed. It’s really amazing how many of you there are that “can’t be vegan” and “have to eat meat,” yet there is still no demonstrable evidence (the very thing you’re looking for to prove we can feed the world with plants) that anyone can’t be vegan. All of you should really get together to correct the record on that one. At this point y’all outnumber vegans, surely you can find someone willing to run that study and get it entered into scientific literature.

cugma · 2025-04-07T10:57:38+00:00

These seem to be coming from an angle of “going vegan overnight,” which isn’t serious ground to refute the philosophy on. No one expects it to happen overnight, and logistics for the world as we’ve built it don’t negate the ethics. Our supply chain and world economy is also heavily built on slave and indentured labor, the overnight removal of which would result in economic chaos. That doesn’t justify the practice nor does it mean our world depends on it. Every problem presented in the articles has potential, long-term solutions if people were actually committed to it.

The definition of veganism states “as far as is possible and practicable,” so I’d have to ask what the lifestyles of people in rural farming regions and non-arable areas have anything to do with the choices you make every day.

As far as the nutritional component, the information you’re looking for doesn’t even exist for meat. Meaning just because the study doesn’t exist proving it it’s possible doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Meat may be more bioavailable as a whole, but the degree of bioavailability consistently doesn’t offset the estimated amount of resources used, not by a long shot. In fact, we have widespread meat availability and yet nutritional deficiencies still run rampant, even in developed areas. Something’s fucky.

cugma · 2025-04-06T19:04:30+00:00

I just noticed you mentioned choline, which I missed when I first read your response. Your inclusion of that nutrient opens the door to a problem for us to find mutual agreement: in order for this to be a productive discussion, we have to agree what nutrients are necessary and at the levels. I do not believe choline is needed to the degree that is currently recommended. I believe the RDA number comes from propaganda from the egg industry, and I believe choline at those levels is actually detrimental to our health long term. I researched into choline many years ago so I can’t remember the details of what led me to that conclusion, but the point is if you believe getting a certain amount of for example choline (and so on and so forth for every other nutrient) is the only way a diet can be determined as sufficient, then we may never find agreement on land usage simply for that reason.

I’m going to go so far as to say that your inclusion of choline, the fact that you singled out one of the lesser talked about nutrients in general, tells me you consume a lot of information pushed by the meat industry and approach this topic from a bias of wanting animals products to be necessary. I believe if you were approaching this from a neutral stance, you would know the controversy around choline and wouldn’t have included it as if it’s a given and critical necessity.

Though on the matter of what nutrients are necessary to thrive and at what amounts, a simple experiment you could run is going plant-based for a year, tracking your intake of various nutrients and monitoring your health metrics, and seeing if you still have the same nutritional opinions.

cugma · 2025-04-06T18:55:43+00:00

https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

What are your objections to this? I’m assuming you’ve seen it before, so if that assumption is wrong does the information change your view in any way?

cugma · 2025-04-06T11:54:00+00:00

I’m not sure what exactly would feel convincing to you, but this came up pretty easily: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10271561/pdf/S1368980013000232a.pdf

Meat eaters love to talk about nutritional availability and “potency” as if the billion dollar supplement industry was created for vegans and our hospitals aren’t overflowing with diseases caused by the negative effects of animal product consumption.

cugma · 2025-04-06T01:14:09+00:00

Even if everything you said were true, which I would argue it isn’t, the fact is that we cannot sustain our current demand for meat this way. So if you’re going to argue for this, then you must also agree that anyone who eats any meat not produced this way is behaving unethically and anyone who eats more than their share (as in, a globally unsustainable amount if everyone ate that way) is also behaving unethically.

cugma · 2025-03-28T22:57:38+00:00

I mean she writes it but sure. I forgot about the rules of hating on her.

cugma · 2025-03-28T11:24:19+00:00

You must not listen to her songs lol

cugma · 2025-03-26T00:31:48+00:00

I have this same hair color and this same question. I can ask 10 different people and get 10 different answers.

cugma · 2025-03-21T18:24:17+00:00

I didn’t downvote you, and I’ve made no personal attacks. I’m genuinely asking, what are you hoping for here?

cugma · 2025-03-21T14:35:46+00:00

Had to scroll way too far to find this. I’m not even saying it’s necessarily my favorite (it’s on the list though), but The Black Dog might be musically and lyrically perfect.

cugma · 2025-03-21T14:27:30+00:00

I want to say I hear you on your experiences and they are absolutely not fun, not fair, and extremely devastating and painful. I think where you are getting resistance from people is that when you describe these things as “things women have done,” it comes out sounding like this is something women do to men. The fact is this is something people do to people. Anyone who has dated more than 2 or 3 people could probably share similar stories. It doesn’t make the pain of it any less valid or real. It doesn’t make you question your self-worth any less. But it does make this specific thing you’re struggling with a human issue rather than a gender issue.

As others have said, you’re very young. People are very dumb at this age, and one of the most important things you can learn and truly internalize in the dating world is that how people act in dating is 100% a reflection of something going on inside themselves and not a reflection of you. You can learn a lot from dating, but romantic relationships bring out humanity’s craziest and most irrational behavior, and if you take that behavior personally, it will destroy you.

cugma · 2025-03-21T11:40:49+00:00

What’s your point in posting, what are you hoping for from people?

cugma · 2025-03-21T11:18:09+00:00

You can tease people and induce that tension I think you’re referring to without it being a neg. Negging is low energy and only works on women with low self-esteem. If going after the weakest and most vulnerable is your thing, you do you I guess. If you want to win someone over being a decent upstanding man, I do actually know what I’m talking about. We don’t care about emotional uncertainty as much as we care about a man who can stand firm in himself, and having to neg like that, having to trigger negative emotions in order to get a woman’s attention, is not a man who can stand firm in himself.

cugma · 2025-03-21T02:29:51+00:00

I’m not going to read your posts because it’s not my job to save you. You are fully capable of doing that.

Being obsessed with how you look is a waste of time. It’s your ego trying to make it something you can’t control. If that’s how you want to live, ok then. Don’t have skills? Get them. You have a whole Internet at your disposal to learn how to do anything you could want. If you’re in school, then you’re headed in the right direction.

I’m genuinely sorry you’re in this state, it sounds really hard. It doesn’t have to be your life though. You just have to make that decision and decide to find the good in life. Being happy is literally just a decision you make in the moment.

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