Whenever anyone brings this up, I imagine a vegan sitting at a table with their new friends, refusing to eat any chicken wings, but also not saying why… And then everyone harassing them with a million questions like, “do you not like hot sauce? We can get barbecue”, “are you on a diet?”, “are you allergic?”, etc, etc. Finally, after half an hour of this, they lose it and just as there’s a lull in the music, they scream out, “look, I’m a vegan! I don’t fucking eat meat! Fuck off!”
The whole bar goes quiet, staring, then one of the people at the table reaches for a wing, looks at the vegan, and says, “dude, chill, we get it, you don’t eat meat, blah blah blah. You don’t have to talk about it every 5 minutes! Here’s some bread and butter.”
Congratulations, I wasn’t talking about you specifically because I don’t know you specifically.
No, I’m reversing the myth OP was perpetuating that vegans talk about being vegans constantly. There is no myth that “the vast majority of people care about an individual’s dietary preferences.” I’m using hyperbole to demonstrate what would happen if in a hypothetical situation where a vegan didn’t mention that they were vegan to explain why they weren’t eating meat. The hyperbole comes from the non-vegans not understanding why someone would not eat meat, forcing the vegan to announce themselves. Suddenly, the vegan, despite all their efforts not to, has perpetuated the myth that vegans constantly talk about vegans. In the hyperbolic situation - being used to demonstrate the inanity of the vegans-always-talk-about-being-vegans myth - the non-vegans represent people who perpetrate that myth.
Thankfully, that’s not you. Sorry if you felt attacked.