I Went Vegetarian and Now I Hate Everything

OK, I'm not really a vegetarian. I just don't eat meat. Let me explain.

It really started several months ago. I had a weirdly emotional period where I would get so distressed over eating meat because I couldn't stand the thought of hurting the animals.

The squeamishness that came with eating meat stuck with me, and every time I looked at a slice of bacon, all I could think of was the adorable, intelligent pigs who died so I could have it. The chickens locked up in little cages so I could have my orange chicken. The cows killed so I could have a teriyaki burger. You get the idea.

I live in San Francisco, so I have plenty of vegetarian and vegan friends who have been telling me for years that I should become one of them. Which wouldn't be a big deal, really, except for one serious reason . . .

I. Love. Meat.

Favorite foods include: chicken satay, bacon on top of pancakes, carne asada burritos, teriyaki burgers, coconut shrimp, orange chicken, chicken tacos, steak, turkey sandwiches, lamb roast . . . Basically everything.

I come from a household where meat is served every single meal, a certified staple of Central Californian cuisine. My dad doesn't consider a meal a meal unless there's meat on the plate.

So just avoid temptation, one might suggest.

Did I mention that my boyfriend (who I live with) is a serious carnivore? Like, the original carnivore. Meat and cheese are his food groups.

The man will take a pound of sausage or bacon, fry and spice it up, put it in a cup with some cheese, and eat it just like that. No, I'm not exaggerating. I call it his cup o' meats.

While I personally feel that's overkill and would at least put it on top of a tortilla, it still looks f*cking delicious when I'm restricting myself to eating no meat.

So I thought of a solution: enjoy vegetarian versions of meat!

Yeah, I was really, really excited about this. After two weeks of craving every meat product under the sun, I decided I needed to give things a try.

Attempt one: faux polish dog.

Now, I have a wonderfully lovely friend who's been a vegetarian/pescatarian/vegan for about 10 years now, so I trusted her to help guide me into the world of nonmeat meat. I'm not going to say that was necessarily a mistake, but it may have been a bit of an error in judgement, because I have come to notice that the longer people go without eating meat, the more they think nonmeat meat tastes like actual meat.

In this case, the faux polish dog didn't so much taste like a polish dog as it did a spiced sawdust log.

Attempt two (one week later): black bean burger.

This burger joint that my boyfriend and I frequent for its delicious burgers and fries has been one of my favorites for years. I've tried many things on the menu and liked them all. So, I figured it would be good to try out the house-made veggie burger. Everything else there is good, right?

Wrong. So wrong. I've never been so f*cking wrong.

Not only did it taste overwhelmingly of black beans (if I wanted to taste black beans, I would have had a burrito, just sayin'), but it disintegrated while I was eating it, plopping out the bottom of my burger. I tried not to look at my plate and instead asked my boyfriend questions about his double bacon cheeseburger while inwardly crying that I had voluntarily bought such slop.

I have since been told that basically every veggie burger other than the one I chose is good at this place, so, again, this may have been my own error.

And yet, I'm feeling pretty scarred by the experiences. I've retreated back to getting my protein from more traditional sources (beans, cheese, peanut butter, and eggs being my staples). When I feel ready, I'll go for attempt number three, this time trying to remember that it's not meat and it won't taste like meat.

I know I could switch back to eating meat and make my life much easier, but I can't stop thinking of the animals. The adorable, amazing baby animals.

I'm sticking to my no-meat diet for now. In the meantime, I'll settle for drooling over gifs of cheeseburgers.