So becoming vegan, I lost lots of friends (although veganism was just one of many things that amounted to that), accidentally converted one to vegetarianism, and only once successfully created another vegan. I’m quite ashamed of how little (perceived) impact I’ve made, but recently I have been quite proud of my one convert as they are my best friend now and I don’t have to deal with carnists on a day to day basis.

It would be wonderful if we could flip a switch and have everyone become vegan just by explaining the facts about the exploitation of animals, but it's not our burden to carry. This is a generalization, but I don't think we all became vegan as soon as we understood that certain "foods" came from violence. Each person makes the decision to participate in this violence with every meal. One day it clicked for you. Maybe one day it will click for them. You can't hold yourself accountable for other people's actions.

Although I feel conflicted about this one because I don't believe people are irredeemable, I do think it makes sense to have distance grow between people when their ethics are fundamentally opposed to one's own. I'm guessing I'm at a different life stage than you, and I don't want to downplay how hard this sounds like it was. I can share that friendships exist in all sorts of ways and sometimes they wind down because we or they aren't the same as we were when the friendship started.