Vegetarianism

This post is not about sex. Well, I'm not planning to make it about sex. You never know where things go. But if you read the title and thought, "Ooh, Lexi's going to talk about sticking various fruits and veggies into various orifices," you'd be wrong.

Sveta has decided, now that she's in college, that she wants to try being a vegetarian. Rebellion against her family, probably a little bit. The fact that college food is crappy and the meat is sketchy, I thought definitely a possibility. But it turns out that since I got done with college some time back in the early Bronze Age (back when those Greek letters in fraternities still meant something) they've improved the culinary options at most colleges quite a bit. Okay, I'm joking about most of that. My college food experience wasn't horrible. But I did stop eating meat for a while just because institutional meat seemed a bit sketchy to me. And it was the late Bronze Age, the kickin' Bronze Age, right before the introduction of iron-smelting from the Hittites. Pharaohs up, Assyrians down, muthafucka!

I told her the above (well, except for the geeky Bronze Age jokes), that I too had gone through a phase of not eating meat when I started in college (although not for any particular reason other than that I wanted to avoid food poisoning and the dreaded freshman 15) and that I supported her choice. I also told her that (a) I lost weight my freshman year, even after going back to eating meat (I lasted for a few months) and (b) I love meat too much to be able to give it up for any length of time.

I do. I like meat. Red meat. I cannot ween myself off it by first switching to pork, then poultry, then fish. I like beef. I'm not saying I want to slaughter cows for fun, or that I want to eat a steak every night, or that I demand meat at every meal, but I like to be able to eat red meat once in a while.

Sveta, unfortunately, is being vegetarian for at least partially moral reasons. Which means that... I'm going to have to avoid eating meat when I'm with her. She knows my feelings on the subject: I like meat and don't see anything particularly wrong with eating it in moderation. But I can see friction developing over this.

Still, she's in college; it's a time to assert her individuality and make her own choices and be an idealist. I'm just going to have to cut back on my consumption of animal protein. I told her in no uncertain terms that if she becomes a vegan, I was going to force-feed her nacho cheez dip until she exploded. I was joking, of course; I'd never do that to her. Nacho cheez is kind of nasty. I might force-feed her heavy cream though.

Is this really going to be the friction? That my girlfriend wants me to become a vegetarian with her (and if she's being moral about it, I see the haunting spectre of veganism on the horizon)? Honestly, I didn't see that coming. I figured the friction would be over something a lot more important than that. I'm a lucky, lucky gal. I'm not gloating; I'm genuinely and continually amazed at the current state of affairs.

In other news, I have descended with a jolt from my high of the previous weekend and while I still can draw joy and strength from Sveta, I am now knee-deep in reality and sinking fast. Oh jobs, why hast thou forsaken me?

Oh, and if you're a vegan and I offended you (or you're Sveta reading this at some unspecified point in the future), sorry. It was the cheez talking. I wasn't myself. I can't control it. Sometimes, late at night, I dream of oceans of nacho cheez. Oceans of delicious, Day-Glo orange goo.

Okay, I've got to have some nachos. Right now.