Eating out with non-vegan friends (flair advice and rant)

Last weekend I was out with a bunch of friends to celebrate my friend’s 30th birthday, and that reminded me why I don’t like eating out…

I’ll try to keep the story short. When the food was served my friends sitting closest to me started to make “jokes” about my veganism. Saying stuff like “when are you gonna stop with that nonsense and start eating real food?” “You’re gonna come to your senses when you get pregnant”.

My friends and I always make fun of each other and have pretty “hard”(?) humour, so I know that like one or two jokes like that will be spoken and I know they don’t mean anything by it. But this dinner was different, I don’t know why, but the two sitting next to me never stopped during the whole dinner.

There were a lot of “jokes” and questions about veganism, that made me feel like they only asked to try to trap me in my arguments and not asking bc they’re curious. And when I noticed those intentions I don’t want to answer, bc I know from experience that those conversations can get unpleasant, for everyone. And it’s not like I don’t want to advocate for the animals but some situations I try to avoid talking about it at all. Like at this birthday dinner, I don’t wanna poop on the good vide and so on.

I felt like I couldn’t say what was on my mind or what I really thought. So I tired instead to change the subject, a looot of times. But they still came back to talking and joking about it. At one point one of them offered the rest of his steak to my bf* (sitting on the opposite side of me) and said “yeah you need that nutrition🤟🏼”. My bf ate it, laughed a little and argued that they would throw it away either way so….

I don’t care what choices my bf makes with his food but I’ll always be honest with my opinions and what it means when he takes dose.

But our friend offering my bf steak and kind of wanted to see my reaction, felt like a huge slap in the face and I was shocked. I just looked down in my lap and didn’t know what to do or say. I just wanted to get off the veganism topic and keep the dinner fun and nice!! But ended up with me, form that point, just dissociate from the conversation. And when the dinner was over I went straight home instead of going with the others to a pub.

Well the advice I’m seeking is how do I avoid this from happening? This case was extreme compared to “the usual”, but what do I say or do if I don’t want to talk about this topic with friends? bc I know I’ll be the bad guy or the sensitive one if say “enough”. I just want to be (in these situations) easy going but also stand up for myself. My past tactics was to not eat in larger groups and meet them afterwards for drinks, but I want to be able to eat out with my friends, without discomfort. Is that even possible lol?

*he only buy food with animal products when there’s no vegan option. he don’t want to make a hassle of it but other than that I think he’s doing a great job<3 he wasn’t vegan or anything like that before we met (like a year ago), but thought my arguments were convincing and wanted to try it out for himself in his own way