Do people smoke because it's cool? Or do cool people smoke?

apparently there is pressure on Hollywood to start playing down smoking on screen. it was even mooted that when a character is seen smoking on screen, looking totatlly cool and sophisticated as they invariably do, an anti-message would be shown at the same time. i'm sure this will never happen, but it makes you wonder what is going thru the minds of the anti-smoking lobby, the censors and other assorted plebs.

It seems an obvious point, but smoking tends to get less cool the more the consequences of it come wheezing into view. And when the life expectancy of people close to you is strongly related to their smoking habits the glamorous allure of the cigarette starts to vanish.

(I realise pious ex-smokers are irritating as fuck , so I'll shut up now.)

why are non-smokers obsessed with smokers? it almost makes me feel cool. get over it people.

I know having me not find you attracive may not be the biggest loss, I'll wager that a good proportion of non-smokers see a foxy chick/dude, see them lighting up, and turn away disappointed.

Ha! My girlfriend always demanded that I stop. "If you love me you will stop." I did not stop. I loved her.

Now she has started smoking. She says she will do it until I stop. "If you love me you will stop to make me stop." We do not stop.

I think eventually I will surprise her, and stop, and she will go on. Will this serve her right, or do I not love enough?

I have had boyfriends who smoked. I try to kill them anyway so I didn't mind.

Definitely. You don't realise how offensive the smell of someone that's just had a cigarette is, until you are a non-smoker. I mean, you can smell it, but believe me, you never really know how bad it is. It is stale smoke that is the worst. I also hate it when you go to the pub & your hair & clothes stink of other peoples smoke. But as I said, I am not a preacher ex-smoker, i don't mind smoking on hte whole.

Seriously, smokers don't bother me one bit but I do wonder why they start when all I hear now from my smoking friends is "I really need to quit".

The world and its workers are very odd.

Most of the kids at school who started smoking at age 11/12 didn't make it through highschool (they weren't very cool). A lot of my high school friends started smoking when they went to college - I thought at that point you knew enough smokers that you would know it would be a bad idea to start.

The most unattractive I have found my husband was when I saw him with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth - a year after he had quit. But I seen a lot of pictures of him smoking and I think a lot of people would have said he looked pretty cool.

Ally, you're absolutely right. Why would I want to be with someone stupid and inconsiderate enough to smoke?

Ally, you're absolutely right. Why would I want to be with someone stupid and inconsiderate enough to smoke?

Word. Looks gross + odor = not sexeh.

That all being said, smoking and vegetarianism are the two most amazing topics on this board to me. Any thread talking about ways to cook or enjoy meat, or anything about smoking, gets bombarded with hatred--is it that hard to just ignore things? No one on ILX is actually smoking on you, cos it's the internet! Everyone wins.

As for looking cool, I guess it does, of only because someone smoking has only one hand to worry about. Like the drummer from Def Leppard always looked well cool. Except when they tried to disguise the fact he only had one arm by making it look like he had his other arm around somebody, that looked like shit.

Mandee - see above. it's socially acceptable, by and large, so complaining makes no difference. I've never had a problem with you smoking, and I'm sure if it was blowing in my face or something, you'd be happy to move your hand or whatever.

(occasionally it does have a physcial effect on me, and I've had two or three nasty asthma moments triggered by smoke, but that's different)

Kenan, it has nothing to do with people making different decisions from me. It's the fact that it directly affects me in an entriely negative way.

i used to be cool, untill i developed a little problem with my lungs collapsing. and it might sound weird but i kinda miss smoking.

The difference to keep in mind here is that toilet cleansers will actually do clean your toilet to some degree, whereas cigarettes only add a theatrical prop to your gestures, a wretched smell to your clothes and hair, a taste of tar to your mouth and a morning hack that could shake the dust from a mummy. As that roomful of 'cool' smokers age ungracefully into middle age, the exact benefits of smoking become more definable. The 'cool' aspect recedes along with the smoker's youth, while the other aspects of smoking bulk ever larger.

When you get the age where parents/aunts and uncles etc may not see their grandchildren grow up as a result of this particular habit, it's bound to reduce your tolerance of it.

It doesn't mean you go throwing water over anyone who sparks up or having a go at them in public, but it might make you question how fucking cool they really are.

Like I said before, though, I've literally been brainwashed on this subject. I know ex-smoker self-righteousness is a pain in the arse.

(Please note this might be a joke before you all get a hard on for this post)

Someone should tell Fran Drescher, now that I think about this.

Smoking: very uncool, big turnoff, especially with women. I know a couple women in their 20's who smoke who look like they are in their 30's. I like an occasional cigar myself - you know, after a good dinner, sitting around a campfire, stuff like that - and while I'm not a militant anti-smoker, there is just something kind of sad and irritating about people who sit in bars and chain smoke. Like, ok, you're among friends right? you've had a couple pints right? Surely you're a bit relaxed, so why are you constantly smoking?!

Oh, and people complaining about how they "really need a cigarette" is annoying.

yeah it feels good to be cool again

Still, I often see cute women on the street smoking, and I have to say, part of me finds them more attractive because of it.

opposite for me tbh

Yeah, I never really got that either. I guess confidence = sexiness and a 'lookit me I'm smoking on the street' type may exude some extra self-consciousness about their appearance to the rest of the world. I don't find that attitude attractive tbh.

The attitude doesn't put me off; the fucking foul stench does.

i'm not going to be all dramaqueeny and say this has been the worst month of my life or anything. but god i want a cigarette.

I smoked for ages. And it started off INNOCENTLY ENOUGH, WHEN I WAS 20. THINKING "OH HECK..." and you know - smoking one. Boo. Bad choice. I social smoked for like a year thereafter, but slowly upped the amount I was smoking when Jr year of college I decided I wanted to smoke more TO MEET PEOPLE.

Sadly, it worked. I made friends in a heartbeat. And then I started smoking a pack a day for like... five years thereafter. Grodey. I quit when I was 27, stayed off the cursed things for well over a year, then started smoking socially again for another year. Finally decided this past autumn that I needed to stop and I haven't had one since.

Now that I have gone a fair amount of time without having a cigarette, they really gross me out. I hate walking through a group of smokers, because I can smell it on me for the rest of the day. Also, I CAN SING AND TALK MUCH LOUDER AND I DO NOT GET WINDED! That is the best part!

NOW, If I found out tomorrow the world was going to end in five years, I WOULD NOT HESITATE TO BEGIN SMOKING IMMEDIATELY.

One thing is true though, these days smoking is an existential decision.
Everyone knows smoking is bad. So what does it mean to begin smoking in 2010?

How is it an existential decision when you have a century of marketing and product placement building up the social construct that smoking is the coolest thing ever? Knowing cigarettes are bad doesn't mean you're making this decision on your own terms, it means you've given up on fighting massive societal peer pressure.

They can prove cigs painfully reduce genital size and people will still buy them cos they're cool.

That's kinda got to be contrasted with the increased coverage of the likely health impact though?

it could also mean you were a retarded preteen who lived near a "lounge" with a cigarette vending machine on its doorstep and had little to spend his allowance on other than comic books and slurpees.

i smoked for seven years - had some shitty lung problems i may or may not have talked about here when it was happening - and then quit shorty after. glad i did, but it took maybe another 5 years for the urges to stop totally.

i was in Tunisia recently and it was SO CHEAP and EVERYONE smoked! so i bought a few packs and smoked my whole time over there. had no problems stopping once i got back tho, thank god.

and ya - i still don't know what it is - but girl sucking on a cigarette = boner city.

xposts

in under a month i will be 5 yrs smoke free

kind of amazing to think about it

strongz if i could do it, literally anyone can

you've tried a few times now, haven't you?

... to quit.

no i did it on my first time

not you, strongo!

i used to be able to stop and start at will, really. pick it up for six months, drop it for six months. usually based on work/life pressures. (or finances.) was this way for, god, 18 years? but have smoked non-stop for the last two years -- anywhere from a pack to a little more than two per day -- and can really FEEL the effects (not just on my wallet) for maybe the first time ever. quitting has been...decidedly less easy this time around.

i started reading comic books again when i quit smoking, for something to do (and also as a "reward" for all the money i saved). now i don't smoke and have a house full of comic books that i never read and im slightly embarrassed about when i have a girl over.

wow - two packs is alot. you doing the patch or gum or anything?

xpost ha aha hhaa - the right girl will understand

I am 40 and am the only person in my immediate family (mother, father, sister, myself), and nearly in my entire extended family, to have never tried it. I have been absolutely disgusted by it for as far back as I can possibly remember. I've always wondered what it was that distinguished me from my family members that resulted in this. Something genetic? Mental? Other?

My pet peeve: People who stand outside in the cold smoking, then with whom I have to share an elevator up. The stench is just nauseating.

my experience with both the patch and the gum is that they make me nauseated and do little for the cravings. (a lot of it is, i think, the pavlovian routine.) (it was a lot worse when i worked from home.) ("worked.")

also i hear the anti-smoking drugs can cause rage spikes, and not sure if that's something i really need right now.

the gum just smoothed over the roughest spots for me. i stopped using it after a few weeks.

do what i did and treat quitting like a painful break up that u just have to get over

it really worked

i should write a book about this way of quitting cuz i really think it is u&k

also whenever i chewed the gum i had these weird visions of looking like that scene where pee-wee gives francis the trick gum

everyone does, that'll pass

yeah man i can see that theory working (in theory) but you dont really know what a recidivist i am when it comes to break ups

hum. I've been smoking for like 20 years (I don't really remember when I started actually). I don't smoke a lot (around 7/day average and lately more like 1 or 2/day) and never in the day time. I roughly have my first smoke when I meet people for some drinks after work. so I've never felt it was a problem and never thought about giving up.
I don't remember why I started smoking though. I guess it was because I was hanging around the older guys my big sister was hanging out with... so I guess it's got something to do with wanting to be cool at the time...
oh and also, almost every men in my family smoke !

"okay, just one pack, tonight. i promise i won't call you 5 times a day for the next week, rj."

I'm a smoker so obv not impartial, but I don't understand the absolute HATRED AND DISGUST some non-smokers display toward the slightest whiff of cigarette in the air, on a person, etc. I'm not saying it's an inherently enjoyable smell, but neither are...well, pretty much anything else you're going to smell outdoors, in your bathroom, in the garage, in your office kitchen, or anywhere in the world, pretty much. New York is chock-full of disagreeable smells, esp when the temperature goes above 75 degrees.

I do get the issue of second-hand smoke danger, but the smell ALONE is not giving you cancer. I share a subway with smellier people all the time (whoah there was a real doozy last night, people actually left the car at the next stop) and you just deal with it.

I mean it's not worse than someone's perfume that might make me cough or even gag. All that's missing is the sense of moral superiority?

Pancakes, I apologize, I'm not tarring you w that brush. I understand there's probably a lot of levels of emotional response that you're having if smoking was a family thing. My dad feels the same way, coming from a family of fairly gross lifetime chain-smokers in that mid-century "the pause that refreshes" way.

itt smokers deny that they stink of shit

Haha, I react the same way to the perfume wearers as I do to the smokers! No harm, no foul. It's more just a personal pet peeve than a "Begone, foul knave!" kinda thing. Certainly don't think I'm morally superior, just prefer not to be around it!

A smoker for twelve years, and unless I drink heavily I don't smoke more than two a day. But, boy, do I look forward to those smokes.

slocki, you should write a book! The email you wrote to me about how you quit was v helpful & inspiring to me when I quit smoking. I think quitting smoking requires having a good philosophy & yours worked for me.

It's not really acceptable to tell someone that their subtly applied, £40/bottle scent makes you gag though, is it. Maybe it should be.

xxpost

If it were either "subtly applied" or "half-decent to begin with", it wouldn't bother me. There are just a couple of scents, particularly that standard-mall-issue "Vanilla Fields" crap, that make me feel sick.

http://beyondasiaphilia.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/better_tomorow_1.jpg

there are different levels of smoker smell though- from a not unpleasant faint air, to a dense, heavy absolutely vomit-wrenching tar stench.

Laurel - sometimes you don't realize how the smell sticks with a smoker until after you've stopped. i admittedly have a strong sense of smell, tho.

when i quit i worked with this guy who smoked and didn't wash his cloths nearly often enough - and it got to the point where i'd avoid working on projects with him because the stink was so completely revolting to me. i am also grossed out almost as much by the perfume/b.o. overdose types too. but the smoke smell was def way more offensive when i had recently quit.

vanilla i don't mind so much - incense can really bother me tho. ESPECIALLY pachuly (sp?).
i'd rather inhale the smoke off a burning litter box.

I freely admit all the shortcomings of being a smoker, and my sense of smell has never been that good to begin with.

I did manage to smoke in several different apts for many years with an exhaust fan, the window open, high ceilings, regular house-cleaning, etc and none of my office-mates believed that I was a smoker because I didn't smell of it at all. But when you've just come in from having one, yeah, it lingers on you for a bit.

slocki, you should write a book! The email you wrote to me about how you quit was v helpful & inspiring to me when I quit smoking. I think quitting smoking requires having a good philosophy & yours worked for me.

― Dark Notion (Abbott), Thursday, February 18, 2010 11:16 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

:D thanks for saying so abbott

I like(d) smoking because it was always something to look forward too. not many things do that to me tbh

take up masturbating.

my mother says to get a job, but she don't like the one she's got...

take up masturbating.

What is this "masturbating" you speak of?

not gonna see Tom D. for a while once he figures this out

"It's like sex but for free!"

ts rubbing one out vs stubbing one out

aaaaagaggghah don't combine the two

ts: pulling on a cig vs. pulling on a... oh you get the idea

i smoked for about 20 years, and haven't had one in nearly 7 weeks. using the patch right now. smokers do indeed stink.