I'm wondering how many people answering this are in regular contact with people that they like and respect that smoke?
Two smokers I know are people who are about as far from 'selfish' in any other sense of the word as one could possibly imagine. They are people who always go the extra mile for others, who volunteer, who take responsibility, who are just all round great human beings. Knowing them has changed my view of smokers a bit. I still don't like the habit, but I no longer think of it as necessarily a sigil of stupidity or bastardliness.
One of my best friends (he was my best man) is a regular and fairly heavy smoker. I don't get to see him very often (the last time was late September and before that April).
True, smoking isn't necessarily a sigil of stupidity or bastardliness, but people who are truly unpleasant or thoughtless are in my experience more likely to smoke; just because everyone who smokes isn't like that doesn't alter the overall situation. :-(
My father was a smoker, until his near-fatal stroke at the age of 53 which has left him permanently disabled and according to the doctors was due to smoking not cholesterol. Admittedly I neither like him much nor respect him, anymore. My mother, whom I both like and respect, smoked all my life until 5-6 years ago, when she quit (mainly to save money, not from any road to Damascus conversion). So no, smoking is not a sigil or stupidity or bastardliness - but getting on a high horse that one's right to smoke wherever one pleases, counting on people's natural politeness or shyness to let one get away with it and believe it's no big deal and non-smokers are just being arsy is definitely on the wrong end of the bastardliness spectrum.
I agree with the view expressed in the second half of pellegrina's post. I hardly know any smokers, but a favourite relation (now dead) was a heavy smoker, another relation smokes, and a few of bek's friends smoke I think, and I have nothing against any of them ;) So it's not prejudice against all smokers, I accept they have a range of demeanours in general, and regarding their smoking habits specifically. But I have witnessed enough smokers with a bad attitude (and incidentally poorly trained dogs) to be satisfied with my assessment of both situations.
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Date: 2009-01-21 03:00 pm (UTC)Two smokers I know are people who are about as far from 'selfish' in any other sense of the word as one could possibly imagine. They are people who always go the extra mile for others, who volunteer, who take responsibility, who are just all round great human beings. Knowing them has changed my view of smokers a bit. I still don't like the habit, but I no longer think of it as necessarily a sigil of stupidity or bastardliness.
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Date: 2009-01-21 03:36 pm (UTC)True, smoking isn't , but people who are truly unpleasant or thoughtless are in my experience more likely to smoke; just because everyone who smokes isn't like that doesn't alter the overall situation. :-(
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Date: 2009-01-21 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-21 08:08 pm (UTC)