Something that has really surprised me through the anonymity of the Internet is how deeply some non-smokers hate smokers.
For instance, right here on this board, (I can’t remember which thread) one poster seriously suggested that smokers shouldn’t have the right to vote.
I get that smoking is a nasty habit and it makes us stinky. It’s a minor annoyance. What I don’t get is the deep seething hate.
Why? And how common is this among non-smokers?
Don’t be shy. Please tell us what gets said behind our back. How do YOU really feel?
[For the record: This thread is strictly to satisfy my morbid curiosity. This subject matter is NOT a source of depression for me. So no need to reassure me. :)]
I don’t care as long as they don’t try to smoke in my vehicle or my house. A huge percentage of people used to smoke and still do in some parts of the world. I don’t think the hatred is inevitable or innate. I feel bad sometimes for smokers because it seems like they are a persecuted group in some places with ever more draconian laws restricting where they can smoke.
As long as they aren’t smoking around me, I don’t care at all. Well, that’s not true. I don’t like people on public assistance smoking. Although my tax dollars go to pay for food stamps, and they can say that they aren’t using food stamps to buy cigarettes, if they’re spending money on cigs and asking me to buy their food, pay for their medical costs, etc, I’m peeved.
Smoking is bad for you. Unlike alcohol, it cannot really be done in moderation, and does not have any health benefits.
If I see a young person smoking, I conclude that person is a total moron who is incapable of making rational decisions.
I tend to be more sympathetic towards older people, since I assume they became addicted before the health effects were widely known.
I think people should have to sign a waiver that disqualifies them for eternity from all forms of government help (including welfare, food stamps, Medicare, etc.) in order to smoke. Well, not really. But the idea of it is satisfying to me.
Seething hate is about right. I hate, hate, hate smoking. It stinks–really, you have no idea–and it gives me a headache. I would visit some family members more often if they didn’t smoke. I don’t have friends who smoke. I wish I could weed out clients who smoke, cause they stink up my office.
I wouldn’t say* hate*- I hate child abusers and rapists- but I definitely have a high level of distaste for smokers. And I used to be one. But then I think that you have to actually hate yourself on some level in order to be a smoker. I don’t say anything to disparage them, I don’t advocate stripping them of rights to vote or receive public assistance, but do I want to hang out with them or date them? Nope.
It’s absurd – former smoker, but one who is disturbed by the stink people raise about others smoking in public. Perfectly normal thing to do. The next to doorways thing – OK, that makes some sense. Anything beyond that reasonable request belongs in an enormity of its own.
People who groan about the health “hazards” of vastly dissipated second-hand “smoke” should think much more carefully about the proximity of more serious industrial pollutants, such as those caused by gasoline engine byproducts.
I’d be happy with selected places where no noise pollution and air pollution were allowed to exist, though. It probably exists – way way out in the country. A suburbanite driving a car hours daily through a crowded freeway, then kvetching about someone smoking tobacco in a park or on a street is the absurd.
A related question I’ve answer wondered about. Above, someone says that they assume a smoker is incapable of rational thought. Do you feel the same way about people who are obese. Like, obviously unhealthy obese? Would you cut their benefits?
Skip the arguments about how they aren’t hurting you - I’m really just interested in the judgment part of things. I’m puzzled why it’s okay to malign smokers, but we mustn’t ever say anything bad about obese people, since it’s really about the same thing in terms of addiction.
I’m too am not too bent out of shape about smoking in parks or otherwise outdoors.
But this fuckng sea of cigarrette butts everywhere? Now that gets me fucking stabby. If I was a congressman I’d be pushing a bill requiring the companies to spend a buttload of their profits on anti butt littering ads. That and some black opps hit squads to take the random butt flinger.
Well, sending in the Z-Team of the spooks, if they have one, is probably a little extreme.
There did used to be ashtrays, though, and people used them for the most part. I haven’t seen an ashtray in a long time in public. For that matter regular trash cans. Either would make for fine places for cigarette filters.
I also dislike littering. Although, in the gutter doesn’t seem a problem, given whatever else chemical particulates are floating around there, but I see cigarette butts anywhere but in the street (and not the sidewalk – IN the street) and I get a little irritated as well.
Some of my best friends are smokers.
I don’t hate smokers.
I can get irrationally angry at smokers sometimes.
It’s very very hard for me to be around smokers, I’m not only annoyed by the smoke but I am allergic to it as well. It makes my eyes water and my nose clog up, my throat gets sore and my ears start to hurt. When I was tested by an allergist my worst reaction was to tobacco, I got huge welts. If I’m in a car with a smoker I get nauseous, even others have noticed I get a little green and shaky.
Smoking has always been a deal breaker for me, because no matter how much I like someone I know eventually I’m going to be mad every time they light up. It wouldn’t be rational to get with someone who smokes and then expect them to quit.
I don’t like kissing a smoker, the taste is gross and there is no amount of mouth wash that kills the taste, it just covers it up so you can taste the smoke and the mouth wash - double yuk.
I was so happy when smoking was banned in the work place. I worked in a place where you could see the smoke haze hanging over the cubicles. No wonder I was sick all the time.
However, I don’t support outdoor bans or even banning smoking in bars. If I go to a bar I expect smoke, if it’s bad enough I’ll leave. Outdoors, as long as it’s not blowing in my face I’ll deal with it. It’s not like the occasional whiff is going to bother me, it’s being closed in with no fresh air that’s going to make me sick.
Actually, not so similar. Smokers are addicted to a drug (nicotine) and also sometimes they are “addicted” in some sense to the physical routine of smoking. It is possible, however, to live without smoking; it is not possible to live without food. The obese person is not addicted to a drug like nicotine, overeating is much more complex. Full disclosure, I have never smoked, but I was obese at one time, for several years.
Not to derail further, but right now I have a big gripe against an organization called smokefreeca.org, which is running “public service” spots on television. In one, a woman is outside on a balcony smoking, but somehow the second hand smoke makes its way upstairs to the apartment above, through the outside room, and then gathers, in the next room in, in life-threatening clouds above a baby in a crib. In another, a man is smoking, apparently outdoors, and several feet away from anyone else; then oxygen masks (like on an airplane) start dropping down and people put them on, until he feels so ashamed he puts out his cigarette. This is just stupid overkill and I think it fuels the kind of hatred that the OP is talking about. I don’t believe that sensible people (like me :D) will respond to these PSAs in the way they are hoping.
I don’t personally dislike someone for smoking per se. The social costs are enormous, and I would be in favor of smokers facing their own smoke-related health costs. I also hope we are no longer subsidizing tobacco growers in any way (but I’ll bet we are, somewhere). I would not date or live with a smoker any more, if I had any choice in the matter. If my SO took up smoking, it could be a relationshipi-killer.
Roddy
Here’s one for ya: I’m a non-smoker who smokes! I can’t stand cigarette smoke, not even my own. And the only way I can be around it at ALL, like in a bar or whatnot, is if I am smoking as well. That was my excuse for a few years; now most places are non-smoking, and I don’t smoke anywhere except in my own yard. Will not smoke inside anywhere, for any reason. Didn’t START smoking until I was 31, and I smoke cloves, and only cloves. Even when bars are smoking, I will still often be asked to smoke outside 'cause the odor is too strong or someone doesn’t like it. Grew up with smoking parents, and hated it hated it hated it. I’m heading home to visit my folks, and my mom still smokes, inside. I hate staying over there 'cause that’s all I can smell for days, lol.
So, yeah. I don’t hate the smokers, but sure do hate the smoking, even though I do it. Does THAT clear anything up? Didn’t think so.
I do not hate smokers. I just hate being around smoke. I have a pretty strong reaction to it and even smelling it on clothes I feel like I can’t breathe. I kind of feel sorry for people who do it, because it’s just one of those pointless, unhealthy things humans can do to themselves. But really, I don’t harbor any feelings of ill will. It’s nothing personal. I just like to breathe.
ETA:
Are you freaking kidding me? Obese people are maligned and humiliated on pretty much a daily basis.
I don’t hate smokers, but they really disgust me. I think of smokers as dirty and unclean. They always smell horrible and they likely don’t take care of their health in other ways either, which makes me think less of them.
Now a days, I’m surprised to see smokers. Almost everyone I know is a non-smoker, and my parents have even quit. My youngest sister smokes (but lives far away) and my mother in law and sister in law smoke, but those are the only people in my immediate family that smoke, so I’m lucky in that respect.
I am an ex-smoker myself, and used to be more understanding. My irritability against smokers has only developed in the last 5 years or so.
