I was going to reply to this then I remembered I turned 20 already. Oops  :'(
Anyway, when I lived full-time with the family I just used to offer to cook twice a week. Mum was happy cause she got nights off and it gave me a chance to show off healthy, hearty, home-cooked vegetarian meals :)

I think that some people think of veganism as a diet, it is not, though it has a large impact on what is consumed.  It is not a lifestyle, and I object to that wording.  It is a principle, a way of living.  I think it is often associated with tree-hugging hippie types and weird dirty people who live on communes.  Perhaps in the 1960s, people did live on communes and were perhaps a bit grungy from farming on the commune, had long hair, didn't like the Vietnam conflict (it was not a declared war), and wore tie-dye.  Well, it is the 21st Century and 40 yrs or so later, these ideas are not so "far out" as they once were.  With more than a little luck and some hard work, perhaps they will be mainstream ideas.

Because it is often thought of a diet, and anyone who has tried a weight loss diet will tell you, will power can be broken!  If only we were practicing willpower, they might break us!  For most of us, willpower not to eat meat doesn't come into it, it was a choice, a decision made because of our feelings and principles, something inside, important to us and not because we felt we needed to conform to an external belief in beauty, thinness or fitness.  There will plenty of people in our lives who will feel the need to try to break our willpower by offering us meat thinking they just need to break us down to join them.  I wish they understood, vegan isn't a diet, it is a belief system.

To the one that said just one person can't make a difference in animal slaughter, not so.  I think I read somewhere the one person consumes something like 2000 cattle in a lifetime, and you can bet it is a higher number of chickens and quite a few pigs too.  If my figures are right, then you and I together, just us, we have saved thousands of cows, innumerable chickens and an awful lot of pigs.  That is just you and me.  I'd say that was difference.

I also think that others feel weak in the presence of what they see as our self-sacrifice, one they cannot manage or won't try.  Initially, I am sure every one of us missed flesh for a while and certainly we have all talked about dreaming of eating flesh.  It doesn't mean we want it, however. After you get really stuck into the vegan/vegetarian diet, you stop missing meat and start longing for other things, things which the tainted nose and tastebud of the omni cannot appreciate...the natural smell and flavor of vegetables and fruits of all kinds.  "Diet" done right, you'll be a bit thinner, much healthier, more calm and happy then any meater ever thought of being.

I will say, and this comes from a woman old enough to be your mother, so listen up...that life is short and it is too short to spend your time with males who do not respect you, who tease you or try to sneak meat into your food.  You can't blow it off as just the fact that he still eats meat.  He is rude, unfeeling,  insensitive, overbearing, opinionated and domineering.  Today it is the hamburger on his plate he thinks you need to taste, but as you grow older and date in your 20s, if you give an unworthy male an inch, he'll steal the mile and run right over you, your feelings, your self-worth, and anything that is important to you, to steal that mile.  Remember, you deserve better and if he can't be open minded and at least give your way of life a try, dump him.  There are other males who will be more giving and considerate, find one.

I went vegan right after turning 16, and I was vegetarian at 15.
Going to college next year(dorm life!) should be interesting.