I wrote this article when I was eleven. To see the new version of this article, click Here. How To Deal With Your Friends By VeganGirl, Age Eleven Your friends will be shocked when you tell them your decision not to eat meat. At least mine were. I was overloaded with hard-to-answer-questions and "problems" with being a vegetarian. Augh! How could I deal with these? I felt like saying "None of your questions matter! Why don't you look them up on the internet!?". And, the thing I could not stand the most was that most of there questions didn't make sense. They were just trying to make me change my mind about my decision to become a vegetarian. One boy said "if you didn't fish, there would be too many fish in the water". I knew he wanted me to say something against that, And I did. But I didn't know what to say. I ended up saying something stupid. Then I asked Mom if that was true. She didn't think it was true. She said that if that would happen it would take about a billion years. And knowing how people are treating animals, there probably won't be any more animals in a billion years. At least that's what I think. Don't feel bad if they treat you mean. If they chose to be that way, then fine! But try to talk to them alone and tell them why you choose to become a vegetarian. Some people think that if you're a vegetarian, you'll try to pressure them to become one, too. Of course, I want my friends to become vegetarians, But I DEFINITELY don't want to pressure them. Tell them that you don't want to force them to feel guilty for eating meat and that if they'd feel better with you not talking about being a vegetarian, you will stop. Also tell them that you'd like it if they'd stop getting down on you for being a vegan/vegetarian. Some kids don't know they're getting down on you, so you have to be careful what you say. Some kids ask questions because they're curious, not because they're getting down on you. So try to answer they're questions as good as you can. If I wasn't a vegetarian, I'd want to learn more. Wouldn't you? Always remember that.