I miss the clutches of people that would congregate in smoking areas on breaks at work, kinda forced to socialize but all walks of life would be tied together by their shared vice.

Now the smoking area at work has dwindled so I feel like a pariah sucking on my electric nicotine pacifier for a couple minutes, staring at my phone and ignoring the other pariahs that come outside.

Hell, I think I met the larger part of my 2000s friend group striking up conversations outside of bars when you could no longer smoke inside.

Sorry I’m romanticizing am unhealthy dirty habit, but I do think that we, in the US at least, have vilified one more means of social connection.

I stopped smoking a decade ago. Do cigarettes really cost that much now? Fuck…