It's pretty simple, really

Please consider the following exchange and ask yourself if it seems reasonable.

"Would you like some of this chicken Marsala?"
"No, thank you. I don't eat mushrooms."
"Really? No mushrooms at all? What about shiitakes?"
"No. They're mushrooms."
"Would you eat morels?"
"No, because they're mushrooms."
"How about porcinis?"
"No."
"If someone served you portabellos, would you eat them?"
"No."
"I only ask because I know people who don't eat mushrooms, but they'll eat portabellos."

Chances are that you would think the questioner in this exchange to be rather unreasonable, if not maladaptively stupid, because (s)he has essentially asked the same question four times in a row and seems to have expected the answer to change. No one who knows what a mushroom is would ever feel the need to pursue this line of questioning beyond the initial exchange.

Why, then, am I so often forced to endure the same line of questioning for animals? If I'm a vegetarian, why should I have to individually justify my preferences against chicken, flounder, lobster, escargot, and frog?

A surprising number of relatively intelligent people seem confused by my food choices. I will make this as simple as any human being can make it: I am a vegetarian. I do not choose to eat any animal flesh. I will eat almost anything else. I do not maintain some secret, semi-fluid list of exceptions to these rules.

If I were to eat any sort of animal flesh, I would not be a vegetarian. This includes fish. Fish are animals.

If I were to choose not to eat other animal products--e.g., milk, eggs, etc.--in addition to animal flesh, I would be a vegetarian, but I would not identify myself as a vegetarian. I would identify myself as a vegan. "Vegan" is a word different from "vegetarian" because it denotes a different sort of thing.

If other people use the words "vegetarian" and "vegan" differently, then they are wrong. Ignore them.

Thank you.