New Years is a time of reflection. I've been delving into my past asking why didn't I turn vegetarian/vegan before? What scared me away? What caused me to delay so long?
Some people are interested and open minded. Yet, so open minded they have to protect their selves in order to function in this world. Also, people who are down on their luck tend to be more receptive, but protective of their selves.
Unexpectedly and endless talking about experiences with the other side
The idea of ghosts and other entities is universally scary. For some reason, the same people who are attracted to holistic health love to tell ghost stories. From personal experience and from T.V., radio, and other media sources.
Excessive reliance on anecdotal evidence
A little bit of anecdotal evidence is fine, but after awhile it can backfire.
Herbs, supplements, and other unreliable healing techinques.
This is bad for two reasons. First, guilt by association. Just as you wouldn't want to associate yourself with somebody with an awful reputation, you wouldn't want to promote a treatment with a terrible track record. Second, if the person follows the bad reputation treatment they could get hurt and run away.
Note, I had the most trouble with this. I found a group talking about holistic health and listened for a while. Yet, after the others talked endlessly about supplements I became suspicious and left.
The first time I walked into Arnold's Way I noticed the supplements and walked right out. This is worth reiterating, I walked into a vegan hangout place saw the supplements for sale and marched right out.
Too many unsubstantiated claims.
Fairly obvious, but if you don't supply your sources for your information its harder for people to believe you. I perceive a severe lack of scholarly peer reviewed sources backing up claims made throughout the holistic community. I find it comes off as lazy to not provide a credible source to back up the claim. Often, it would be better not to make the claim at all, then to provide no credible source.
Unrelated conspiracy theories
This boggles my mind that somebody would possibly think it would be a good idea to talk about conspiracy theories in a vegan hangout. Especially ones unrelated to veganism. I remember the first time I heard about chemtrails. At best conspiracy theories are a distraction and at worst its a turn off. If you must talk about conspiracy theories at least talk about vegan conspiracy theories like humane washing.
Summary
People only have so much time, energy, and patience. Choose your words carefully, backup your claims preferable with scholarly peer reviewed sources, leave off the irrelevant ghost stories, and finally don't hurt the listener by giving bad advice like herbs, supplements, and fasting.
If you hate vegans and animals run you mouth unbridled. Jumping from subject to subject. From your ouija board experience, to a ghost story you saw on T.V., and all the benefits of a herbal supplement while standing in a vegan meeting place.
Replies
Two more, pushing, and touchy feely people.
Pushing
One trick a salesperson knows is not to push their client. I've had several vegans push me. "Just go vegan" "why not go all the way?" The knee jerk reaction is to push back and run away. Instead, give the non-vegan some space. Let them make their own decisions. Give small amounts of information backed by credible sources instead.
If you really care about turning somebody into a vegan, you will take the time to hunt down additional literature.
Touchy feely
Some people respond to this, others do not want hugs from strangers. This is just totally weird for most people. A great way to scare people away.
Random annoying experiences
Any experience that annoys the potential vegan will hinder. Any experience that makes the prospective vegan happy or calmer is positive. This is true both for websites and physical locations. People associate places with feelings. If a video is placed on a website that spins around a lot and makes the audience feel sick, the person is less likely to return. The opposite is also true.
Suggestions
Perform non-vegan activities. Sounds trite, but most of the vegans I've met in real life see veganism and health as their lifestyle. No video games, no card games, no nothing. To a non-vegan they come off as one dimensional characters. Its almost as if they leave their old lives behind and begin anew. Which sounds good, but makes it hard to interact with them.
I'd like to talk about something other than spirituality, conspiracy theories, health, and veganism. A group of vegan and non-vegans meet. They talk about veganism, they leave, and that's that. Then, they met again next week.
It feels a little bit like going to college. We got to class, attend class, we leave class, and we go home. Not even speaking to each other. Sometimes I chase down some person, but the conversations are always brief and never amount to anything. Did anyone any friends at college?
Meeting with a group of vegans and prospective vegan feels the same way. Its hard to perceive what's missing. Yet, its obvious something major is missing. There just seems to be no reason to meet in person.
I've known of at least four vegan meeting places. They all seem the same. Sort of like people you pass in a crowd or strangers at a restaurant. You notice them, say "hi" half of them don't even respond.