I think you suffer from being likeable, exotic, friendly, & inoffensive.
This can be overcome with counselling & practice.
I have counselling appointments on Fridays. We're working on it.
BTW, is the old cliche true, ie, that the only time Jesus Christ
is mentioned at a Unitarian Church is when the janitor falls
down the stairs? (I married Mrs Revolt in one.)
I think there is a difference between the Unitarian Universalists and the Unitarians. I think the UUs are a merge of two movements, the other being Universalism.
Strangely, I found Jesus to be mentioned very frequently at the UU church, though typically in jest. They tell you whatever you want to hear to get you in the door and volunteering for stuff, but you find out very quickly that if you're not an atheist, you can't sit at the 'cool kids' table' during coffee hour, and you wind up being the butt of jokes a lot.
I'm alright with being the butt of a good joke, but most of these weren't very well thought out. I remember someone coming up with the motto of "which god is it you don't believe in", and me telling them I doubted the Goddess Milda existed, as she seemed a later construct to be added to the Baltic pantheon, and too much resembled a Greek deity, and those concepts didn't exist in that culture at that time... they didn't appreciate me trying to deflect from their self perceived cleverness
We buy bagged too. Just because you're poor most certainly doesn't mean you have to eat poorly. Try dried bulk chick peas at an Indian store. Crazy cheap. But I get it how people, if they haven't been exposed, have silly ideas. Try saying, "I'm fasting." But I get similar stuff with Tamil culture too, because in that cuisine, white rice, salt, oil, white flour, and sugar, are all core ingredients, and I eat a bit of salt, and some oil, but won't touch the rest.
Haha ... don't get me going on food.
It was actually being poor that made me learn how to cook. We struggled financially pretty badly at one point, and we couldn't have afforded pre made foods if we had wanted to. That's over now, but I found I really really enjoyed cooking.
I have an uncle I'm fairly close with(actually, my mother's uncle), and while he has no interest in religion for himself, he does listen to me talk about my own path with some interest. I remember telling him about fasting and Hinduism, and him telling me "I had a Hindu coworker I was good friends with when I was working; it seemed like that guy was fasting every other week!" I laughed and told him his insights were likely correct... I find most people don't question me on fasting, but always assume its weight related.
I love south Indian food... I do try to cut out some of the less healthy ingredients, and find it isn't hard. Not so with all cuisines, though. While I could happily make Indian food every day, I vary it to appeal to the tastes of the kids, who all like something different. Oldest doesn't really care for it, other than some of the cuisines from the Northeast corner.