I’m A Smoker And You Need To Leave Me Alone

First of all, yes I know that smoking is bad for me.

I know that much amount of money is better to be spent on anything else other than a pack of cigarettes.

I know that smoking is bad for my heart, lungs, skin and other body organs.

I’m also well aware that I harm other people because of my smoking habits, and to those people, I deeply apologize.

I apologize to those non-smokers or people who want to quit (I know how hard it is) that I took your right to breath a fresh air. Believe me when I say I tried my best to only smoking in the permitted area, or when there’s no restriction sign, I tried to find an empty spot for smoking.

But to all of you I want to say:

Stop giving me that look. That disgusted look, judging me as if I don’t know how sickening it is to smoke a cigarettes. Just please stop the judging.

I’m one of them who smokes not because I think smoking is cool or it validates you to some degree higher than non-smokers which of course is not.

No, I started smoking because I was troubled and at that time, smoking seems to be the least self-harming options I could think of. I’m not looking for justification here, I’m just telling you before all the hates bashing over, that I regret the day I decided to smoke my first cigarettes. I thought I’m stronger than the smoking addiction, but I’ve never been so wrong.

And now I’m a smoker, a girl smoker.

I see somehow there’s some double standard in society for smokers based on their genders.
That it is common for men to smoke because they got more pressure from work? From their families and girlfriends? Is it because they hang out with fellow men smokers and it’s some sort of a code to smoking along and claimed yourself a social smoker? Don’t women also have the same pressure?

While women, ah, don’t you think it’s kinda look so un-lady like, trashy even, when you seen putting those cigarettes between you red lipstick-ed lips? Don’t you know that nicotine could turn your teeth into yellow? Do you know that it dries your skin out? Do you know it jeopardizes your ability to reproduce, like it could hurt your womb? Well we know for sure men don’t wear lipstick and are womb-less. Is that the problem?

Why do boys don’t get that “you’re not a good person” look from most of you? Why do you only walk pass through your male friends when you saw them smoking otherwise gossiping behind our back when it was us, your female friends, who smoked?

I don’t think that health is the issue here.

It’s the double standard you, society, set to us. It’s the same case for promiscuous people, when it is men, it’s normal because men have needs, but when it’s women, meh, slut! Why do men and women held different moral standards in the eye of society?

I’m not claiming myself as a feminist or a gender-equality fighter, no.

But I have enough of all the looks I got from strangers when they caught me smoking in the corner of nowhere when the men besides me stayed invisible.

If you think that is sort of a social punishment for smokers, I’ll object, first because it didn’t make me (or anyone I presume) want to quit smoking and second because you didn’t punish men smokers. Or if you think you’ll telling us through that look that smoking isn’t at all pretty moreover healthy for us, I am telling you once again, we know.

I know smoking is bad for me, stop looking at me like I don’t.

Being a smoker is not something I’m proud of, stop making me feel like I am.