I made it to 25 without smoking a cigarette, despite attending high school in France, where the end of a three-hour philosophy lecture was signalled by kids rolling their smokes, and asking their professors to borrow papers.
If there was a time in my life where peer pressure to take up the “social” habit peaked, this would have been it.
That, or the first few weeks of university in Wellington, when I came out, and subsequently started hanging out at Ivy Bar. Gays of my generation and older will remember the underground smokers out the back of the dance floor. It was the best place to meet people.
One pandemic later, I am a daily vaper.
The Ivy smokers’ area was always packed. If you didn’t light up, it was hard to justify your spot crammed against the chain-link fence. One of my best mates from high school came out around the same time as I did. He had a boyfriend – and was smoking a pack a day – within weeks.
Mikaela Wilkes – Stuff – 2022-02-09.
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