the things guys will do for...

Sometimes I wonder if I'm too hard to match. Firstly, I'm Vegan, and how many men want to date Vegans? Seriously. I mean, where could they take us to eat? Well, actually, I can tell him where we can eat, but anyway. Won't their family be insulted if they bring vegan-girlfriend home for Thanksgiving and she doesn't eat anything?

Also, I don't want kids ever. No, never ever. Will I change my mind? I doubt it. The only reason I would do it, as far as I can see, is because of biological urges, and I'm pretty good at resisting biological urges...But apparently okcupid says the best matches for me are the guys who want 3-4 kids. You expect me to spew at least three humans out my uterus to prove my love for you? No thanks.

But after talking to some guys and reading posts by some guys on forums, it's interesting to see what they are willing to do to get with a girl they like.

Firstly, my cousin Lou (who is the same age as me) married a vegetarian, Layla. She was raised vegetarian while I converted in college. So of course, when we get together, Layla and I exchange recipes and talk endlessly in our Vegetarianese (seitan, nutritional yeast, tempeh...). He joins in at times, because now he's mostly vegetarian. He likes a steak every now and then, though it messes up his digestion for a couple days when he eats it now! He did not grow up vegetarian, though. Like me, his dinners growing up were basically "big-chunk-o-meat and potatoes," "big-chunk-o-meat and steamed veggies" or "big-chunk-o-meat with bread and butter." He seems pretty cool with being veggie, and they are raising their son to be mostly-veggie. I think he's convinced that being vegetarian is good for your health and still delicious.

However, I've read posts by guys in their early-to-mid twenties who said they were dating a girl who was vegetarian and they went vegetarian while with her, but then went back to eating meat after they broke up. It makes me wonder if that was Lou once upon a time, if he converted in college to be more appealing to his then-girlfriend. "Yeah, Layla, I'll try a seitan sandwich. Sounds great..." Had he married another woman, would he be mostly vegetarian now?

Also, just when I was thinking that my childfreedom is limiting my selection of men too much, that I'm putting myself on the road to spinsterhood (not that that's necessarily a bad thing, as long as I'm a cool spinster), D told me about how he broke up with his last girlfriend because she was undecided about kids (but leaning toward yes), while he discovered during the course of the relationship that he really didn't want kids. He said that a lot of guys don't think seriously about having kids. They just want the "cookie" (as Steve Harvey calls it). So they go along with parenthood because their significant other really wants a widdle baby. From the way he said it, it sounded like quite a few guys are actually undecided or ambivalent, but figure, well, babies come with the cookie...

That restored my faith a bit, though I apparently encounter all the men with the "baby rabies!" I shouldn't lament that I'm too hard to match and think that I need to change core beliefs to get a guy. I certainly don't expect a guy to convert to Veganism to be with me, though he needs to understand I ain't cooking meat for him! And if D's assessment is accurate, I shouldn't think that all guys who claim to want kids will be turned off by me. They might just be saying that because they figure all girls want to reproduce, even though they could probably go either way on the parenting thing.

I'm still not messaging guys who say they want 3-4 kids, but maybe I should send a message to the ones who say, "1 or 2." It's just coffee date anyway, not a marriage proposal.