I started smoking on November 12th 2006.
It was a chapel service, a thing at school where we had mandatory anglican church. It was a special one for Remembrance Sunday, related to my school’s history to the military (fun fact – D-Day was planned there).
I was 17 and willing to do literally anything in order to impress girls that were at least ‘passably’ attractive. So when an actually really, really pretty girl called Rachel texts me asking if I want to do something after the service I’m pretty excited.
I knew her through my best friend. They’d known each other through their parents for most of their lives. She’d pretty much always crushed hard on him (probably because he looked like a young Daniel Craig). Thankfully this friend’s strict parents never let him out that often, so this time, when he was busy with a family Sunday lunch, I was able to pick up the slack.
So we meet up. She’s looking very WASP-Girl-on-Sunday; neat hair, white knitted cardigan and a dress with an orange print (I think). We start talking about girl who would later become my first girlfriend, and she’s educating me on the niceties of dating and how to flirt while sober.
I really like talking about how people work – not gossiping, but just trying to understand them and their motivations, and trying to do the same thing to myself. I’d end up calling this ‘studying Ethics’. Talking about ‘ethics’ with Rachel defined how we knew each other. Normally people react with either severe disinterest or incomprehension. Rachel was ready to talk about this stuff, and had all this insight into what was really going on with people – especially girls. And like I say, she was a pretty girl herself, which was great for me.
This no doubt has something to do with why we were good friends – the girls I’ve had the biggest ‘things’ for are the girls who can teach me something about people. Rachel was, emotionally and intellectually, ‘my first’ in this fashion.
So we’re talking girls and I’m trying to seem all worldy and pseudo-intellectual (still am, incidentally). We go past a Tescos and Rachel asks if I have any money for cigarettes. I do, somehow (the mysterious wallets of unemployed teenagers). So I buy my first packet of cigarettes ever.
Now we have a ten-pack of Lucky Strike. She offered me some, which I think I awkwardly refused at first (inexperience mostly). Then she offered again and I was like “Oh! Cigarettes are cool! And hot!” She was trying to make me more ‘cool’, which was really sweet of her, and much appreciated given how much I needed it. So I take my first attempted toke.
I learned my first lesson. Don’t ‘butt-suck’. That’s when you over-moisten the filter by putting too much into your mouth. Mortifying for me, but again she was sweet about it.
Rachel gave me this whole education about what it was like to be cool. A gentleman never tells, but it would be a while before I reached the point of having had as exciting a life as she’d had at 17.
She taught me a demeanour about alcohol and drugs and cigarettes uncommon among my set of peers. Basically, ‘don’t brag about it, share experiences, be open to new ones, and be sensible’.
She taught me how to talk to girls, especially all the stuff I didn’t know. For example, ‘Don’t be afraid of them’. ‘There are girls who will fall in love with any guy who lights her cigarette for her’. ‘They’re just people’. ‘They’re nice’. ‘They’re cool’. ‘They think almost exactly like you do, probably because of how much O.C you watch’.
Now that I have more conversations to compare it with, it was a pretty great one, objectively speaking. And a great introduction to smoking.
Smoking in company is an intimate thing. Especially in the pre-ban days. We could smoke in coffee shops. We could smoke in bars. Over our time living in Bristol our friendship became beautifully inseparable from smoking. And later when we were at Uni. After extended periods of abstinence, we would smoke heavily when meeting up for a 6-monthly coffee or drink or meal.
I don’t smoke as much as I used to. I’m actually almost entirely smoke free for about 8 months now, except for precisely 3 lapses. Coming from 40 a day, I’m down with that.
My current roommate, who doesn’t smoke, asked how it was even possible to get through 40 a day. The answer is good company. I could smoke with Rachel for days straight and enjoy it. Smoking is a commitment to a conversation, and that’s something you can only make with someone you love.
