They Said No To Burgers But Nobody Understood Why

A vegan I know was invited to a work social evening at a pub. It wasn’t the first time and the organiser had thoughtfully arranged for vegan burgers to be available alongside the regular menu, as they had done before, and on the surface everything seemed fine.

But she didn’t want to go and when she was asked, she said something honest and heartfelt. She said, “I won’t be coming, because when I look at the burgers, it makes me feel sad.”

The organiser paused, and then said something that felt, to my client, like a punch to the stomach. “Well, I suppose that comes down to personal choice, doesn’t it? Some people don’t drink alcohol and find it uncomfortable being in a pub for all sorts of reasons. Maybe we should just change the venue altogether?”

She walked away feeling worse than before she had spoken. Her attempt to stand in her values, to say something true about who she was and what she believed, had been quietly put into the same category as a preference for sparkling water over wine. Her grief about animal suffering was not appreciated and it was as if what she said had been heard as a lifestyle inconvenience.

And the irony was that none of it was the organiser’s fault. It actually was because my my client had not told her what she actually meant.

She assumed she had as she had spoken about being vegan many times before. She had mentioned her distress about animal cruelty in previous conversations and felt, quite reasonably, that the person standing in front of her already knew all of this, and that the significance of it was as clear and as present to the organiser as it was to her.

What I’ve Learnt

But here is something I have learned in over three decades of working as a psychologist, and something I see vegans I work with, discover again and again: people do not carry our stories with them the way we do. They have their own concerns, their own preoccupations and their own version of the world. What feels enormous and defining to us can be genuinely invisible to someone else, not because they are or indifferent, but simply because we have not connected the dots for them in that moment.

If we don’t direct people toward the meaning of what we are saying, they will find their own meaning, and it will almost never be the one we intended. And, the animals are left out of the picture.

How to get the message across

So here is what I suggested she say instead, the next time she is invited and needs to decline.

“Thank you so much for inviting me, and I really do value getting together with everyone. However, I won’t be coming because when I look at the burgers, I feel enormously very sad, because I don’t see a burger. I see an animal who has lost their life.”

That one sentence does everything the original response could not. It names and explains the source of the feeling. It makes the philosophy visible without lecturing, arguing or putting the other person on the defensive. It leaves no room for the response to be redirected toward personal preference or lifestyle choice, because the meaning is already there, clear and complete

And it does something else that matters enormously, something that goes beyond this one conversation in this one pub on this one evening. It reminds the person listening that veganism is not a dietary quirk or a social inconvenience. It is a philosophy of loving kindness that touches every part of a person’s life, and that when a vegan makes a decision, even a small one like whether to attend a work do, there is often something profound and deeply felt underneath it

THIS IS KEY

We cannot assume that people remember what we have told them before. We cannot assume that our values are as present in their minds as they are in ours. Every time we speak, we have an opportunity to make our meaning explicit, to lead people gently toward understanding rather than leaving them to fill in the gaps with whatever story is most convenient or most comfortable for them.

The next time you find yourself in a situation where you need to explain a choice, a boundary, or a feeling that comes from your veganism, resist the urge to abbreviate. Resist the assumption that they already know. Say the whole thing, warmly and without apology, and let the meaning land where it needs to.

You don’t see a burger. You see an animal who lost their life.

Say that and say it clearly enough that there is no other story left to tell.

Want to Discover What Trance-Breaking Communication Looks Like?
If this resonates with you and you want to learn how to communicate your values with confidence and impact, join me for my free 90-minute masterclass, Beyond Vystopia: 3 Keys to Communicate with Confidence and Impact.

Register at veganpsychologist.com/master-class-register