Why I'm giving up forums- I AM VEGAN

I used to be a forum addict.
I LOVED finding a forum full of interesting people and ideas and shared goals.
I loved filling in my profile and choosing an avatar and introducing myself.

However I am now officially giving them up.

What have a learned about forums?

Mostly that in this sort of online situation you have a handful of extremists and the rest playing along to keep in with the cool kids.
I've lost count of the amount of times I have found myself playing devils advocate because people are talking bollocks basically.
I even once found myself DEFENDING fox hunting because the loud mouth who was banging on about it was horse rider (ie rich bastard toff) bashing and missing all the good points he could of been making! Instead of focusing on the fact that hunting was cruel he used it as a platform to stage a class war.

It seems that the world of forums are full of "Polly Pures", people who are the very heroes we mere mortals aspire to be.
If you use a green soap powder you can bet someone uses soap nuts, and that someone else hand washed and yet another person only uses  rain water and all the way up to "PP" who never washes her clothes because its a waste of resources.

You get the picture?

In real life you would have congratulated the person who brought green soap powder, you would have patted them on the back for making a good choice.
On the forum however she is now left feeling like she can never EVER possibly reach an acceptable level and she may as well go and chop some pandas heads off.

The catalyst for me was joining a vegan forum a few days ago.
I was super excited about it!

The creator is a vegan I admire greatly and the food is amazing, so I was really looking forwards to joining. (No I'm not naming it, some of the people there were very nice).

So I joined and went through the posts and said hi and thought "This is sooooo coooool! I love this place!" 

Then I made a mistake.

I admitted that I had rescue hens and maybe ate an egg a week.

Immediately I was bombarded with "You're not a vegan then"

Well.... Yeah I am...

A vegan is one who seeks to eliminate animal suffering and exploitation as much as possible, a vegan consume no animal product, but as I live how I live and wanted to offer these hens some freedom and compassion after their bad start in life I wasn't exploiting or hurting anyone was I?

Grey area.

Nope I was told in no uncertain terms that I absolutely was not a vegan and shouldn't call myself one. I was offered "Ethical vegetarian".

WTF????

You want to throw me a bone and say I can stay as a slightly yukky pet so long as I know my place?

Correct me if I'm wrong but if they can be vegan and still feed meat to their pets (directly contributing to the meat industry), take medication tested on animals and containing animal products like milk and opt to have the flu jab (suspended in egg) why the hell can't I call myself a vegan???

I rescued those hens, they have no cockerel so the eggs are not fertilized, they will lay no matter what I do but I MUST NOT EAT THEM!!

Apparently I can give the eggs away or feed them to the dogs but I MUST NOT EAT THEM!!

But wait... If I gave the eggs to someone else isn;t that passing the buck? Isn't that like the Christian who won't kill but is happy to let someone else do it while he watches?

Forgive me... I don't GET this?

You can buy factory farmed meat for your cat but I can't eat an egg from my rescue hens?

Now You know apart from this egg (and it really is 1 or 2 a week TOPS) I am 100% vegan. When the hens don't lay I don't BUY eggs, I never eat eggs elsewhere, and all my friends know that vegans don't eat eggs and so they don't serve them to me.

This narrow minded black and white view is what has made me throw in the towel.

After this thread I was in bed worrying about the fact that all of a sudden people didn't like me.

I had allowed myself to be cyberbullied.

I am a person who understands the grey in all areas.

I don't need to follow the rules to do the right thing.

I don't need the acceptance of groups to make me feel good.

vegan is not a diet it is a lifestyle.

I AM vegan.