Living outside the accepted "norm"

I have come home from my spinning group feeling yuk.

This group have never been the friendliest bunch so I have alway been careful with how much I say and what content is in that dialogue, but I have been away for the last 2 weeks and today I plum forgot to be careful.

I let it slip that I follow a Weston A Price style diet, after I was offered a biscuit and declined. This led to a lot of questions. Not the inquiring type questions that say "Oh, what is that? Tell us more". The type that say, "What do you mean by being different!! Are you challenging our mainstream lifestyle?!!!"

One of the ladies is a retired nurse turned teacher, and of all the people I have ever met these are the worst kind for thinking outside the box (sorry if any of you lovely people fit into that category - Im sure there are exceptions to my experience!). Well this lady was very offended by my dietary ideas and went to extreme length to suggest some (often bizarre) situations where this diet was not healthy.

I should have laughed, because she was being rediculous, but she was sooo rude to me I just felt angry, offended, and beligerent. What difference does it make to her if my lifestyle is different!!? So unfortunately I argued back, trying to explain some of the science behind my reasoning. I soon realised it was a lost cause and just went back to my spinning.

Obviously my attempt to withdraw from the discussion was not noticed and the next thing she started parroting on about was my choice to homeschool! She wanted to know if I was a qualified teacher, if I had a university degree (like that is any of her business), how would I know if my kids where up to the standard of school kids etc, etc, etc. It was a full frontal attack, and truly nasty.

I answered her questions, but each answer was scoffed at and the next one was loaded to the pistol ready to fire. I was trying not to be rude back but finding it hard to give her an answer without highlighting her own arrogance. (I could have said "gee you are really threatened by my choices", which I have done in the past, but I felt it would not go over well with this woman).

The sad thing was that one of the other ladies agreed with her and kept adding fuel to the fire, and I ended up leaving feeling like I was the one with the problem.

I obviously dont believe I have a problem, but the heat of that moment was so intense I got lost.

Ok, deep breath in, slow breath out.

Back home again and feeling better to have gotten all that off my chest and regain my equilibrium.

Now Im off to make some radical almond meal muffins and some recalcitrant pastries (made with lard!)