Smoking can provide much more than just a lingering scent on clothing and hair. This time, we're not talking about collapsed lungs or diminished years of life.
Toronto writer Benita Rowley says:
"You ask someone for a cigarette and you have a little time between taking and lighting the cigarette that you can use to talk. In that little time, you can judge whether or not you want to continue talking to that person."
Moreover, you don't need to try too hard for a good conversational introduction or another move. Without saying anything but "Can I have the lighter, please", "Can you light my cigarette?" or "Could you give me a cigarette?" – you more or less started a conversation or at least, took the "first step".
The cigarette remains a cornerstone of talking to women and perhaps vice versa.
Often, boys say that "they quit smoking, but they would always drink if a girl offered them to you or if she was also smoking".
Having said that, of course women also "benefit" from the situation. For example, a girl may use cigarettes as an excuse to be taken out by a boy. Who would leave a girl alone at the door of a club at 1 in the morning for example?!
Americans call "smirting", as a combination of "smoking" + "flirting", the practice of smoking and flirting at the same time, outside public places such as pubs, bars, cafes, restaurants and office buildings where smoking is prohibited .
On the other hand, going out to a bar or similar place for a cigarette - it can be an opportunity to leave those two friends alone who seem to enjoy each other, you just need some time alone.
"You see our drinks. We're going out for a cigarette.”
In all these situations, which you may have encountered but did not pay attention to, the cigarette has served as a social "crutch", even if we exclude the romantic aspect.
The cigarette and the cinema
Smoking and smoking in general is part of some of the sexiest scenes in cinema history.
Think Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not (1944). Bacall lights a cigarette in front of Bogart, the first time their characters meet. He then lights her cigarette over and over again throughout the course of the film.
In "Big Sleep" (1946), the film opens with two cigarettes in an ashtray. You don't need to be a genius to understand the symbolism.
In Now, Voyager (1942), lead actor Paul Henreid as Jerry lights a cigarette to Charlotte, played by Bette Davis. It sounds simple enough, but it's the way he goes about it that makes the moment more intimate between the two:
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