I rode on a train from Montreal to New York next to a very attractive young woman. I tried several times to strike up a conversation, but to no avail. Nothing weird, just wanted to see if she wanted to kill some of the time.
When the train stopped in Albany for a fairly long time (about 15-20 minutes) she got off to smoke and started to chatting to everyone else who was in that group.
Once she got back in to her seat next to me, she never said a word the rest of the way in Penn Station.
She was Danish if that matters. I saw her passport when we crossed the border.
I don’t know if we are friendlier but we are probably politer. I don’t know many smokers who feel the need to tell other people that they stink.
I’m sure all you holier then thou non-smokers have wonderfully pleasant smelling armpits and I bet your farts smell like a top shelf perfume too.:rolleyes:
I wouldn’t say smokers are friendlier per say I just think that smokers tend to relate better with other smokers and non-smokers tend to relate better with other non-smokers.
As a matter of fact I’d be willing to bet that if you took a pole you would find (for the most part) that smokers tend to have more friends that do smoke and non-smokers tend to have more friends that don’t smoke.
There are “unspoken rules” smokers have with one another… whether you are strangers or not. You see a smoker on your smoke-break, you now have a new friend. It’s strange, I think it has to do with the joy of meeting someone else who is living in denial It’s a common bond, like mothers who have their stinky, poopy babies with them in the park and they all coagulate and swap diaper changing stories. Same kind of thing.
I took a survey on smoking for a study, and there were a ton of questions along the lines of “If I gave up smoking, I would have a harder time meeting people. Agree/Disagree” (I don’t smoke; this is just the way the survey was phrased.)
I was mystified by the question. I couldn’t imagine how smoking would help you meet people. I figured it would have the opposite effect. I had no idea that there was this “bond among smokers.”
I like the chemical explanation: when smokers are getting their fix, they’re in a good mood and everybody’s their best friend. When they don’t have cigarettes dangling out of their mouths, to all appearances, they’re just another unfriendly non-smoker.
Come to think of it, my dad’s the same way with beer. Go figure.
While I don’t like to be around smokers these days, when I was in college, the quickest way to meet some new people during the day was to go to the smoking areas and hang out. The people who were out smoking seem far friendlier than random people just wandering around, who are completely inapproachable most of the time. When people are smoking they seem more willing to strike up a conversation. It is a very sociable custom. It’s a shame something similar, but healthy, can’t be devised to give people an excuse to huddle out in the cold together.
It’s a common bond, like mothers who have their stinky, poopy babies with them in the park and they all coagulate and swap diaper changing stories. Same kind of thing.