Smoking (and commenting on strangers choices)?

[SwimmerGirl40]

I did a charity walk up Helvellyn at the weekend. I was standing with the group before we started and one of the group moved about 10 metres away and started smoking a cigarette. I don’t know him too well, he’s a friend of my friends husband, I know he plays rugby and is healthy looking. A woman walked past and shouted, in a very posh voice, “all this fresh air and you’re SMOKING?”. She almost spat the words out. I was quite taken aback, is it normal to walk past a complete stranger and try to publicly humiliate them for their lifestyle choices?

I’m not a smoker now, I quit about 15 years ago. I know attitudes to smoking have hardened in the last 15 years but I was still shocked that she felt that she could speak to him like that.

My mum was in hospital for two months recently and every single day there was at least a dozen people standing at the door smoking (underneath big signs saying no smoking) and I’ll admit to giving them all a good glare as I went by them having to swim through their second hand smoke (myself visibly pregnant). I would never had said something as I would probably have got a punch in the face back (lovely part of the city) but in my head they were being called all sorts.

I can’t bear smoking (or vaping) inside or outdoors, makes no difference, the smoke still lingers and everyone else has to breathe it in.

And there is something about climbing to the top of the mountain to enjoy nature and fresh air in all its glory - only for someone to spark up a fag.

But I wouldn’t have said something as a lone women to a man with a group of friends.

Everyone is allowed their opinion. She didn’t actually insult him, she made an observation. It didn’t warrant the abuse she got in return.

TheFastandCurious

Has anyone considered that she may have a mental illness or disability of some sort?

MN Bingo!

😁

If you direct snarky comments at strangers, you’re liable to get them back. It’s an object lesson in keeping your beak out of other people’s business.
I agree, if the guy she was rude told her to sod off that would be a lesson in not making passive aggressive comments.

Nothing excuses a pile on by a pack of guys (or as OP says rugby guys) getting involved in a situation that doesn't concern them, shouting at a lone woman about how she must be walking her dog because nobody would want her. That is an object lesson in how pathetic men behave and yell at women when they want to show off.

@Sadie789

I’m surprised the staff didn’t move them on. There are smoking huts at the edge of the car park, away from the doors, at my local hospital.

@swimmergirl40 No one does a thing about it. This is one of the new super hospitals. I tried to find an official way to complain but there doesn’t seem to be an option to do so unless it’s related to medical care. It’s a total joke.

She shouldn’t have stuck her oar in, but you lost me when you accused her of ‘publicly humiliating’ him. Seriously? For making a dig about him smoking? Ridiculously over-dramatic. It sounds like you’re using this kind of language to justify the ‘rugby guys’ behaving so childishly in response.

She was out of line attacking him about his smoking. He'd moved away, didn't litter, and the clean fresh air would have been tainted around him for all of a few minutes.
I'm an ex smoker and was always considerate of others so wouldn't have sparked up around a large group, id have moved away too. It's legal to smoke, and as far as setting a bad example goes kids are also witness to obese people and adverts for booze, how is that different? Getting a passing whiff of someone's smoke isn't going to cause anyone health problems. Some people are holier than thou and just like to judge.

I agree with her sentiments although I don't verbally express them when encountering smokers out and about. The problem with smoking is that having killed off the sense of smell, smokers always seem to be oblivious at how strongly smoking reeks, and how irritating it is to other peoples' airways. After the effort of getting up a mountain like Hellvellyn, you don't want to be faced with a cloud of someone else's acrid smoke or any other public outdoor spaces for that matter.

My views on smoking are strong... they were formed aged 7, in the waiting room of the cardiac ward where I read public health leaflets while I waited my turn to visit my dad's bedside. He was dead before I left junior school. Funnily enough since reaching adulthood and being able to live in smoke free environments, my lung capacity in exercise is vastly better and my colds don't go to my ears anymore. So my opinions of smoking are pretty dim especially given how many decades it's been known that it's devestating to health, it's wider consequences and has absolutely no benefits whatsoever.

When challenged, a retort back about your freedom to smoke is understandable (but makes you look like an even bigger, inconsiderate pillock), but various others piling in with personal comments is just plain nasty.

I tbink its a bit of a twatty thing to do to light up in a place like that but I wouldn't say anything

@StillCoughingandLaughing
It was more than a dig. Read my other posts.

I’ve read all of your posts. It’s patronising of you to assume I haven’t just because I don’t take the same view you do.

StillCoughingandLaughing
You don't understand. This woman's comment was a substantial act of aggression where the man (despite ignoring her and getting on with his life) was obviously fearing for his safety as a comment is an act of literal violence. Her tone of voice was clearly a sign that he was no longer safe with this angry, aggressive woman who has so far made a comment about smoking. His lack of response only highlighted his fear, which is why a group of larger men had no choice but to hurl personal comments at a lone woman.

@StillCoughingandLaughing
It’s patronising of you to refer to it as a dig then. It was clearly more than a dig.

I once saw an obese man walking past a group of smokers waving his hands, coughing loudly and glaring at them. Did make me chuckle to myself.

Well aren't you lovely? Why did you laugh?

@slashlover

A morbidly obese man is hardly in a position to criticise other people’s lifestyle choices. As others have also said on this thread.

His obesity did not affect the smokers, the smokers second hand smoke affected him.

There’s no such thing as passive obesity is there?

Is there any other kind?

@slashlover
He was outside, he could have just walked round the smoke, rather than making an issue out of it.

If you go out and blatantly criticise strangers to their face, you really don’t know what the reaction will be. You could be setting yourself up for a lot of trouble.

I used to smoke and one day some interfering busybody man cane up to me to give me the lecture.
Unbeknownst to him my father had died the day before. I'd like to think that following the conversation (mouthful) he received he thought better of forcing his unwanted advice on others.
If she didn't want nasty comments she shouldn't have made any herself. It's the risk you run when you spout off at someone.

He was outside, he could have just walked round the smoke, rather than making an issue out of it.

Smoke travels.

If you go out and blatantly criticise strangers to their face, you really don’t know what the reaction will be. You could be setting yourself up for a lot of trouble.

That's not what you said. You said you chuckled because A morbidly obese man is hardly in a position to criticise other people’s lifestyle choices.

@slashlover
No, a morbidly obese man is not in a position to criticise anyone else’s lifestyle choices. In fact, not many people are in a position to criticise other people’s lifestyle choices.

They do when it's affecting them. I sometimes drink but if alcohol makes someone else loud and annoying then I can criticise them. When drug takers are wandering around and being intimidating then I can criticise them. When someone is smoking/vaping and I end up coughing and spluttering then I can criticise them. If obese man was squishing someone in a seat ( as has been posted here before) then you can criticise him, when the man is just wandering down the street then it is nasty to LOL at him because he dares to be affected by smoke.

It’s patronising of you to refer to it as a dig then. It was clearly more than a dig.

But it isn’t clear - otherwise you would have a unanimous response in your favour.

Perhaps you’d like to explain how a comment about him smoking was ‘more than a dig’?

@slashlover

He wasn’t just being affected by the smoke, he was making a point of telling them he disapproved. He could have just walked around the smoke and got on with what he was doing.

So, if you see a fat parent with fat kids walking down the street, eating crisps. Is it appropriate to point out the link between diet and obesity?