Many a time, I have been in the bathroom in high school, and people are vaping in there. Do whatever you want I don’t really care; but there’s something special about these bathroom vape breaks. And that is the community that comes along with vaping…

What?

You walk into the bathroom, vapeless, and you’re stressed out, having a bad day or whatever. And some person that you’ve never talked to is vaping. “Yo I can hit that?” “Of course, bro.” I’ve always been jealous of this kind of community that vapers have amongst themselves. It’s really something. I feel like before vapes, there was a similar community among cigarette smokers. In a way, the convenience of vapes have ruined this culture.

Words From my Mother Who I Love Very Much

I texted my mom and I asked her about this sense of community amongst cigarette smokers when she was in college or just in general. “Smoking was like an invitation to approach and strike up a conversation. You’re both sitting there, you know you’ve got 10 minutes or so, just make small talk. I used to deliberately not carry a lighter so I could ask guys to use theirs. When you have to leave the room, you are putting yourself in the outside. By smoking, you physically remove yourself from the party, the concert, whatever. So when you see another smoker, you know they get it, too. Even if all you talk about is how much you hate smoking, how expensive, it is still a small moment of instant connection.”

They Get it Too

Back in the day before vapes in like 2014, there really was a sense of connection, of bonding among smokers that has been lost today. This is how I see it. Like my mom said, you physically remove yourself from wherever you are… you go away from the rest of the people because you want to smoke a cigarette, and you would find other people who feel the same way that you do. Now, you go to any bar and everyone has their vape with them; there isn’t any need to step out. Vaping ruined cigarette culture, and I don’t really know what I’m talking about but it all makes sense to me. Not that cigarette culture is anything to be proud of, but at least there was a culture. I started this piece being jealous of vape culture but now I look at vape culture as something that killed a real way to make connections or bond with another person. There’s probably real people out there that ended up getting married because they shared a cigarette when they were strangers, or best friends that just happened to meet because they were smoking 10 feet away from each other. Vaping made nicotine addiction easy. And it’s a bigger overarching problem of easiness in this generation that I have a problem with already. We don’t have to try anymore… and it’s led to a generation of complacency, my least favorite thing to be. Complacency is what kills motivation…

Why does this matter at all?

It doesn’t really. I just hate being in the digital age. A vape is just a digital cigarette. I wish I was ten years older. Everything is too easy now. LOL I’m complaining about my life being easy. What a positive guy I am!! Nobody has to try anymore. Everyone uses AI to get through school. I don’t even have to go to class. I miss something that I never even experienced. And that’s not fair to all the people who did experience it because they would probably kill to have it so easy. I’m going to Bible study tomorrow. I’m going to tell everyone to check out my website. If you are from Bible study, thank you for reading. It means everything and nothing less.