What I Miss About Smoking
I started smoking in college. As you might have guessed, a pretty girl asked if I wanted to. She had black hair, Italian I think, can’t remember her name.
I’m not a very outgoing person, but smoking introduced me to so many interesting strangers. You can’t smoke and not talk. It has the right pace to get a few words in and then take a break. Perfect for conversations with strangers where there’s otherwise not much to say.
It made life more interesting.
One time, I talked with an alcohol salesman. He was complaining about some new law in the city that said all the new bars had to make 50% of their revenue from food. “But no one wants that much fucking food!” he said. “Such bullshit.” I would never have known.
Another time, I talked with an older man who claimed he was once the guitarist for Kid Rock. He asked for my address to send me an autographed guitar. He also told me that there is “more to life than tits”. I don’t think he wanted my address to send me a guitar.
I remember very late nights out on the porch smoking with a roommate. We talked about politics and religion. About a three-way he had. About the lore of Warhammer.
One time this drunk girl, she must have been 20 when I was about 25 asked me who I was voting for in the next election. I was coy. A conversation best avoided. I asked her if I could bum a cigarette. She gave me an American Spirit, and then I knew the right answer. She told me she knew who to vote for because “she read the newspaper”.
I remember chainsmoking with the police detective when I returned to my apartment to find my roommate passed out — heroin — and the walls all bloodied. The golf club bloody too. I had left because I couldn’t sleep with him and his friend being loud all night. Camped out at the coffee shop across the street. I guess his friend beat him with the golf club, but I never found out.
I met people who became non-smoking friends. I met a college girlfriend when I bummed a cigarette from her. I met my first group of friend after college and that girlfriend, as the crowd that always smoked at these recurring parties we went to.
Writing it all down, I don’t think what I miss is smoking. I miss meeting people, the free conversations. What we really need is a healthy reason to walk outside and talk with strangers. I suppose we could just do it, but that won’t scale. We need a reason.