I have been vegan for a little over two years now and I have been with my boyfriend for a little over one year.

Surprisingly, having a non-vegan boyfriend is a lot easier than I thought it would be, at least in my experience. I think part of this is because he is accepting of my diet and never judges me on what I eat.

However, I know that this is not the case with most people, and sometimes it’s not the case in my relationship either.

There will be times when I want to try out an all vegan restaurant and he just doesn’t want that. This can be an issue because whenever we want to go out to eat we have to choose somewhere that has something vegan. Luckily for us, most restaurants where we live almost always have a vegan option.

In cases like this when we go to a restaurant that is not all vegan, it can sometimes be uncomfortable for me when I have to watch him eat a big steak or a chicken breast.

This is kind of where the morals come into play. Sometimes it is hard to date someone who does not value the same thing that you do. In this case for me, it’s animals.

I think that the hardest part for me is to hold back my comments when there is talk about loving dogs or cats. I easily just want to say something like, “Well, if you love animals so much then why do you eat them?” I usually just have to take a step back and think about how forcing something on someone will get me nowhere.

Another hard part for me is having to deal with his friends judging him when he does eat vegan. For some reason there is a stereotype that being vegan does not make you masculine, and that you have to eat meat to be a man. This makes it even harder for him to continue to eat vegan food when he knows he will be judged for it by his friends.

For me, I am so used to people judging me for my diet and have learned not to care. But for him, he only eats this way for me, so the judgement is not helpful at all.

Throughout our whole relationship I have felt no judgement from him, though. Having a supportive partner is so important, whether that support be for a diet or life in general.

Having a non-vegan boyfriend is hard sometimes. But that doesn’t mean I still can’t drag him to vegan festivals and new vegan restaurants. More times than not, he will end up really enjoying whatever vegan meal he eats (especially when I’m the one cooking it).

Exploring new foods in a relationship can be fun and exciting!

But really, there is much more to a relationship than your diet. I have learned that in mine and I am thankful I get to introduce my boyfriend to new foods that he has never tried before.

Because lets face it, he would have never tried a barbecue jackfruit slider if it wasn’t for me.