I have a question for those of you that have been hooked on smoking for a number of years. Have you noticed that smoking in public now makes you feel different than it used to many years ago? Lots fewer people smoke in public now and more people look at you when you do. They make you feel somewhat uncomfortable and they also seem willing to speak up when they don't want you smoking near them. A very subtle intimidation to quit so you don't stand out in a negative way.
but on the whole i would say its slowly becoming less socially acceptable to smoke in public. its just not as cool as it once was.
I smoked from age 14 to age 28. Come to think of it, my three-year smoke-free anniversary is coming up this month. Smoking indoors was--with the exception of bars, restaurants, and hotels--almost entirely abolished long before I started up, so most of my memories as a smoker involve a group of us loosely huddled around some outdoor ashtray, or packed like sardines into cramped bus stop-shaped terminals just outside the door. So in that sense, the only changes I endured in my experience as a smoker were, besides the price, the proximity of the smoking area to the entrance. By the time I quit, I was working for a health insurance company, and we were relegated to this little pen (wooden rails around it and all) about a hundred yards from the door. And it was halfway in the bottom level of the parking complex, so if you smoked in the morning, or felt like having a butt with your pals before calling it a day, you had to deal with the exhaust of about a hundred cars. At least in my experience, non-smokers have always given withering glances and been quick to speak up when they either don't want you smoking near them or when you've strayed too close too soon after enjoying one elsewhere. I always found it annoying, and I think you'll find even the most intelligent smoker waxing angrily about the "War on Smokers," but it wasn't until I actually quit that I understood A) why non-smokers are like that, and B) why ex-smokers are so pious. Truth is, man, you fucking stink. Your smoke is pervasive, it's gross and it gives me a headache. Dude, you don't even know, I had my mind blown just a couple days after I quit: I was in the car on the way home from work, and I could smell the cigarettes from people in other cars! Anyway, since smoking stopped being what everyone did by default, and people started paying attention to the risks involved, and especially since the science started being done on the effects on second-hand smoke, there have been people looking at you sideways for making them walk through your cloud of poison. It's just that now smokers are so much more segregated from society that you're actually starting to feel like second-class citizens in your little glass cages and fenced-in pens. It's your own shame that's making you angry. I suggest giving quitting a try.
