I see your point, I also see RCers point about the constant complaining smokers get. I consider (or should that be past tense now? considered?) myself a very polite and considerate smoker. But I still got complainers. So many of them. And so very very unreasonable and lacking in tolerance.404cameljockey wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:37 pm
Hold on. So if a smoker comes to a table near a non-smoker and the smoke is clearly blowing in the wrong direction (when I smoke I'm very aware of who is getting the secondary 'benefit' of my sh*tstick), the one who should demur is the non-smoker, by getting up and going somewhere else? It's not reasonable for them to ask that the smoke not blow in their or their young children's faces? Just wanting to clarify what we're talking about here.
It was increasingly becoming a case of no matter how considerate and polite I am, the very fact that I am smoking within a kilometer of a living being I am the target for some complaining anti-smoker. And I do call that brigade ANTI-smokers and not non-smokers.
I went on to a terrace outside of a cafe in the UK. Say 10 or so tables. 2 tables in use. I sat at the farthest table from the the other people.... well downwind from them... and a good 6 or so meters away from them. I lit up, my smoke blew in the opposite direction to them. If they were sat north of me, my smoke went south. The woman jumped up and loudly began the moaning about smokers and how they should be banned in public spaces. I have a hundred examples as ridiculous as this. I this woman had been blindfolded there is no way she would even have known I was smoking. Not even if she had nasal-superpowers! So it's very often not a question of a non-smoker being troubled or inconvenienced by a smoker .... more just one group of people attempting to assert their will on another group of people, irrespective if they have actual annoyance (i.e. can actually smell it, or can actually be affected by it health wise). No they just moan as default.
While I am all for a healthy dose of consideration on the part of smokers, a hell of a lot of ANTI-smokers could be doing with a healthy dose of tolerance.
I had a colleague once ask me if I would mind hanging my coat in a whole other room to where her coat hanged (it was a communal cloak room). I asked why, she said she didn't like the smell of cigarette smoke that hung on my coat. I just told her I didn't like the smell of cheap perfume and stale sweat that hung on her coat, so unless the company were going to provide every employee with individual sealed coat lockers she could go fuck herself.
I know many smokers are inconsiderate arses, but many ANTI-smokers are intolerant arses too.
And what Bucksida said above.... I have already told my husband, if I ever become one of these preachy anti-smokers he has to buy me a carton of marlboro as a matter of urgency.