Why would he have a lighter?

[YetAnotherHastyNameChange]

I’ve been seeing a really lovely guy for nearly a year now. No red flags at all, we have a great time together and I’m completely falling in love with him.

This morning while at mine I noticed a lighter had fallen out of his pocket. He noticed it a few minutes later, assumed I hadn’t seen it and put it back in his pocket. I’m a non- smoker, I’ve never smoked (apart from very occasionally smoking cannabis. He told me he’s a non-smoker who has also never had a smoking habit and has very occasionally smoked cannabis too but hasn’t done for years. In all the time I’ve known him he’s never smelt of smoke, we’ve spent a good 5-6 days together and he’s never sneaked off anywhere that could be used as a cover for having a fag. I’ve got a pretty sensitive sense of smell and I’ve never smelt cigarettes on him either.

So why would he have a lighter? I will ask him, obviously, I’m just trying to think of there’s another reason for carrying a lighter around in your pocket that I’ve completely missed. I don’t have a problem if he is smoking, I’ve never suggested that I’d have a problem with him smoking so I just don’t understand why he’s try and hide something like that from me. It just seems really odd.

Lighting a fire.
Sealing nylon/plastic rope or cord ends.
Opening beer bottles.

Perhaps he's heard lockdown is ending so he wants to go to a concert and wave it around?

@ilikebungalows 😂😂 🕯

@Monkeytapper

Crack pipe or tea light

Ha ha! One of these.

I think he is not quiiite the non smoker he's porreayed himself to be. Which after you've compared with smoking crack hopefully doesnt seem too big a deal.

He's lighting candles for a cause we do not yet know about ...

He’s a fire starter, twisted fire starter!

If he hasn’t set this up in my sitting room while smoking a crack pipe for our evening in together tonight I’m going to be massively disappointed.

How would you feel if he demanded an explanation for something in your handbag? Really intrusive

A friend of mine stopped smoking over 20 years ago and still carries a pack of fags and a lighter round with her because she used "I haven't stopped I can have one any time, I just don't want one now" as a tool to help her quit. Twenty plus years down the line, out of habit, she still has half a pack of (presumably stale) Marlboro Lights and a clipper lighter in her bag.

@CombatBarbie

To use as a bottle opener?? That would be logical if he's been meeting with folk outside....

Eh? How do you open a bottle with a lighter? What have I been missing out on??

Eh? How do you open a bottle with a lighter? What have I been missing out on??
You use the corner of the lighter and lever it under the cap using your thumb as the pivot.

Does it matter?

@YetAnotherHastyNameChange

Tbh I couldn’t ask at the time as I noticed when he took them off when we had sex 😂. Then I felt daft not asking him when I saw him put it away as I thought he’d mention it. I also have hundreds of the buggers as I’m constantly losing them and have an electric oven so can’t light them off that.

So I’m sure there’s a perfectly normal reason he has one in there. I wouldn’t care if he smokes, I wouldn’t even care that much if he’d pretended he didn’t smoke at the beginning but actually does in case it put me off. I’m just a massive over thinker and having been married to an alcoholic who hid it from me for years it makes me a bit more wary than I probably should be.

...aaaaaand there's the back story.

I used to date a farmer who always had a lighter even though he was a non smoker. Hed burn twine with it.

I have never smoked, rarely use candles, but always carry matches. I have used them most for sterilising needles (from the sewing kit I also carry) to get splinters out.
Not suggesting that is why he is carrying a lighter, but there could be reasons other than smoking.

mattygroves I’m not demanding an explanation, I’m idly wondering. Also I didn’t go through his pockets, it fell out. If something fell out of my handbag and he didn’t know what it was/ no logical explanation for why it was there I’d just tell him and not think of it again. I’d compare it to a pot of baby food falling out of my bag - it doesn’t make sense as I don’t have a baby but obviously not something private or shameful. I’m just curious.

There is a lighter in my small, every-day handbag right now. Not sure why it's in there really, but it's come in useful a few times for birthday candles when out, used it for lighting garden citronella's at a friends garden the other day to save her looking for matches. It's also been used once or twice when people have asked for a light.

It is a souvenir I didn't mean to buy on holiday. I had to spend over £5 to use the card machine and it was next to the till.

@DogInATent

Eh? How do you open a bottle with a lighter? What have I been missing out on?? You use the corner of the lighter and lever it under the cap using your thumb as the pivot.

Oh. I’m disappointed now! I thought it was gonna be some way of burning the lid off without ruining or setting fire to the beer

What sort of lighter is it - a 5-for-£1 disposable, a refillable such as a Clipper or a 'statement' lighter such as a Zippo?

Set up tea lights in your sitting room.
When he arrives, be looking for a lighter. Casually ask him if he's got one in his pocket.
Either he has or he hasn’t. Depending on his reaction, ask or don’t ask why.
Nip out to the kitchen to find your own lighter/ some other excuse and update us.

@Palavah

Smack

Maybe he’s just a bit manky and hasn’t changed his trousers since he last lit the fire in his house.

honest to Jaysus, is this all you have to worry about, cos if it is can we please swap lives, I want in.
Mumsnet is the craziest place I've ever been to.

It's your one year anniversary and he's going to produce a cake and candle tonight.

So interesting that so many non smokers carry lighters.

Both my parents and my sister smoke and I have never carried a lighter anywhere. If I ever needed one there was always one in the house, i can't imagine why i'd need to carry one around in my pocket. And now that I live alone I do have a lighter but it's one of the ones with a handle so you can light candles/gas stoves from a distance.