My parents were vegetarians. I'd show up at school this giant black kid with none of the cool clothes and a tofu sandwich and celery sticks.
Vegetarians are cool. All I eat are vegetarians - except for the occasional mountain lion steak.
I first became a vegetarian when I was nine in response to an argument made by a radical babysitter. My great change - which lasted a couple of weeks - was based on the very simple instinct that it's wrong to kill animals for food.
When it comes to meat change is almost always cast as an absolute. You are a vegetarian or you are not.