How to Respond to, “Oh I’m Sorry” When You Say You’re Vegan
A vegan recently told me, that whilst walking past a cafe where some of his friends were sitting, one of their non-vegan friends called out with the kind of casual friendliness that caught him completely off guard.
“Would you like one of these traditional German sausages?”
He replied, “No thanks, I’m vegan.”
“Oh, I’m sorry” came the reply.
And then, before he had really stopped to think about what he meant, he smiled and said, “Well, I’m sorry for YOU for NOT being vegan,” and walked away feeling like he had finally said something instead of going quiet.
But here is the thing that most vegans don’t pause long enough to consider in moments like that one.
He had built his response on an assumption, and that assumption could have been completely wrong.
Because “I’m sorry” is never just one thing, and when someone says it in response to your veganism, it could be coming from an entirely different place than the one you imagine.
- It could mean that he genuinely feels for you, knowing the backlash that vegans face for simply caring about animals.
- It could mean that he has some awareness of what you know, and that it must be painful to sit with that knowledge while the world carries on as though nothing is wrong.
- Or it could mean something far more ordinary, that he thinks you’re missing out on a good feed and feels mildly sorry about that on your behalf.
Three very different possibilities. Three very different conversations waiting to happen, if only he had stayed long enough to find out which one he was actually in.
When we assume we already know what someone means, we stop communicating and start performing, and the person standing in front of us, who might be far closer to questioning things than we realise, receives a reaction instead of a connection, and the moment closes before it ever really opened.
A More Impactful Response
There is a more powerful move available to us, and it is far simpler than any comeback we could rehearse.
We can say with curiosity, “That’s an interesting response. What do you mean by that?”
That one question changes the entire dynamic of the conversation, because suddenly the other person has to think about what they actually said, they become accountable for their words, and you step out of your own assumptions and into their world, which is exactly where real influence begins.
If they say something like, “Oh, because you poor vegans can’t enjoy good food,” you can respond with warmth and without defensiveness, “Actually, I eat sausages all the time, the ingredients are just different because I don’t eat animals, and the wonderful thing is that we can have all the taste without anyone having to suffer!”
That is not a comeback. That is a conversation, and conversations are where minds and hearts actually begin to move.
The world does not change through the sharpest retort or the most satisfying exit line. It changes when someone feels genuinely heard, genuinely met where they are, and then genuinely invited to think differently, and that begins the moment you ask the question that brings you into their world rather than firing from your own.
Invitation
If you’re ready to accelerate how you communicate and develop more confidence and have conversations that actually move people, let’s have a chat.
Book a free call with me at https://veganpsychologist.com/conversation and let’s talk about where you’re at and what’s possible.
