It’s finally happened. I have truly become the only sane one of my graduating class. Okay, so that’s exaggerating, but that’s certainly the way that it feels from time to time. This mainly due to the fact that I feel that I’m going to wind up burying most of my friends due to lung cancer. At least half of them, all of them extremely bright, have taken up smoking cigarettes.
Last night, I found out one of my best friends just recently took up smoking. Recently being within the last two days. She’s really intelligent this girl. We’d even dubbed ourselves the “Self-Proclaimed Rulers of the Class of 2005”, so I was really taken aback by this new development.
I mean, in this enlightened day and age, just what drives teens to take up smoking? Its just that everybody these days knows about how dangerous it is, all the risks and everything. Knowing perfectly well that its addictive and deadly, still they pick it up. It just boggles my mind, honestly.
Well, that’s my mini-not-in-a-million-years-Pit-worthy rant. Take it. Discuss.
Ahh…Youth…Sorry TheOnlySaneOne but if you want to count yourself in the leagues of smart people on the planet you’ll shed some of that naïvety. Tobacco is just the beginning. If I were you I’d study up on Addiction. Tobacco is very easy to get addicted to. Maybe we should talk after you accept that people, no matter who they are, can get addicted to anything.
I think the rant is about the fact that people know Tobacco is addictive and it isn’t good for you. Knowing that, why would they even try one and start?
Back when I went to high school (in the early 60’s), you did it to be cool. Yes, technically you knew it could make you sick and kill you, and you knew lots of older folks who wheezed and coughed all the time as a result of smoking, but you were invulnerable - and besides, it was cool.
I’ll bet that things haven’t changed all that much in the last 40 years.
(I smoked on and off from about 14 years old [stole my first pack of cigarettes from my father’s stock] until I was 27. Haven’t touched them since, and am now aghast at any kid that picks up this filthy habit. What, does he think he’s invulnerable or something?)
The girl whose locker was next to mine smoked. Her coat and stuff always smelled awful, and there was always a miasma of nasty stale smoker smell around our lockers. Pissed me off to no end.
I think that if anyone in my little group of friends started smoking, we’d shun them. (Cigarettes, not weed. So many people smoke weed that it’s pointless to try to make them stop/never start. I haven’t ever (and don’t plan to) smoked weed, but if I shunned everyone I know who did, I’d have about three friends.)
I first started smoking when I was in a depressive slump, and didn’t really care if I died because of it --gotta die of something eventually, right? Plus I figured I’d end up dying of something else sooner than any of the bad things caught up with me. I’ve now managed to stop after I stopped feeling a buzz from it, and just found it pointless. I tried quitting a few times earlier, but to no avail…then one day I just threw out the pack I had just bought and said “fuck it”…haven’t picked them up since.
It surprised me during college orientation how many students smoked. It’s depressing that during this day and age, when virtually everyone knows how unhealthy smoking is, that peer pressure and a desire to conform or look cool prompts so many teenagers to smoke.
Even worse is the realization that sometimes I feel compelled to smoke, simply because the other teenagers that do give off a vibe that most teenagers long for: older, mature, jaded, cool, whatever the hell you want to call it. It’s ridiculous. The only upside to this embarrassing realization is the comforting afterthought that I’m smart enough not to succumb to the pressure.
Well, I think perhaps they give off this vibe to other teenagers (who I suppose they’re trying to look cool for); however, to most adults they just look like kids trying to look older - unsuccessfully, usually.
Kinda like teenaged girls and swearing (my personal pet peeve) - I haven’t been a teenaged girl for a while (and if I’m totally wrong, I’m sure a teenaged girl dopeu will step up and correct me), but I assume that the teenaged girls that you see swearing up a storm, using words that would make a biker blush are doing it to look older, and mature, and sofisticated, and anti-establishment and all of those things.
When I overhear it I always have to bite my tounge lest I point out that these gals just look like little girls with dirty mouths.
Who would have figured I’d turn into an old bat so quickly?
All through school, I was one of those folks shaking my head at everyone else who smoked. Then, about a year or so back, I bought a pack of cigarettes. Now I smoke 3-5 cigs a day, and every one of them is like a shot of espresso, in terms of affect. People ask me why I started, and I literally tell them “I needed a bad habit.” I didn’t have a reason, and I still don’t have a reason. Hell, that probably annoys non-smokers even more than those who smoke due to peer pressure.
I cuss because sometimes, you just need to cuss. I don’t do it when I’m just having a conversation, but I do if I get mad or really emphatic about something.
I have friends who cuss every other word, I don’t know what their problem is. It’s annoying, though. And not at all sophisticated.
Where do they get their cancer sticks? Here you must be at least 18 to buy any tobacco products and I see signs in most stores saying they card everyone who doesn’t look at least 35 just to confirm you’re 18.
Heck - I curse sometimes too - sometimes it just slips out.
I was thinking more along the lines of the young women you sometimes over hear saying stuff like:
“So I said listen you stupid fcken slut-ass whore bitch, keep your fcken cunt assed hands of my fcken man or I’ll kick your f*cken ho-assed bitched ass back where you came from you skanky um guzzling twt-muscle.” etc, etc.
I cringe. I actually, physically cringe. Perhaps that was the intent.
I’ve never quite understood why people start smoking either. I know if one’s already addicted, it’s hard to stop. My dad’s been trying to quit for years now, and has made his way down to just 2 or 3 cigarettes a day. When I ask him why he started smoking though, he just shakes his head and says he doesn’t really remember.
Knowing all of the health risks involved, why do people start smoking now? Also, as far as teenagers and college students are involved, most of the ones I know seem to think that the smell of cigarette smoke is revolting. So it doesn’t make any sense to me that people would start smoking to look “cool.”
I don’t really get cussing just for the sake of using the words either. If I’m mad, I’ll start using them. But one of my normal sentences wouldn’t be something like, “I need to go to the grocery store to buy some s*** for the house. We’re all out of s*** to eat.” That just sounds disgusting.
Something that hasn’t been brought up here is excessive drinking. Social drinking makes sense, but throwing up all over the place and waking up without a memory of the night before doesn’t make sense. Does anyone really think this is the cool thing to do? Every Friday at school, I hear stories of the frat parties Thursday night, when so-and-so got really drunk and could barely make it to the restroom. Then the drunk person will stop by, seemingly very proud of downing a 32oz. gatorade to help with the hangover.
Sigh…Maybe I’m just a big nerd. I’ll be in the corner reading if you need me
Depends. I know some teenagers get their cigarettes from their parents. Usually step-dads and the like, but not always. Other people get older siblings or friends to buy them. The rest probably just steal them. Of course, most of my high school smoked, so it obviously wasn’t too difficult to acquire cigarettes or marijuana. You probably could even arrange to get harder drugs if you knew the right people.
And my high school was a normal suburban high school, hardly a drug-addled crackhouse or anything. (At least, I think so. Who knows what underground drug rings the ROTC students were running? Goodness knows there were enough drug users in there.)
I think smoking is a terrible habit. It has bothered me so much it actually is a huge turn-off in terms of the opposite sex. Ever kissed a smoker? Blechhh its a terrible sensation.
i know this sounds bad, but i’m in the medical field, so when i see smokers i see job security. If it wasn’t for cigs and alcohol our patients would dwindle down by half atleast.
What do they do when they get REALLY angry? - If you use excessive swearing in everyday conversation, there are no choice words left with which to make your anger fully evident, so what do you do? Escalate into violence?
