“Wanna go out for a cig?”
Fifteen feet from entrances, on corners and vents, college kids, like moths, circle lighters with Marlboro 27s tucked between lips.
It’s more casual than grabbing coffee or hanging out, especially since you can smoke while doing either. Though it's such a noncommittal way of spending time with someone, I owe some important run-ins and conversations to it. It’s a one-person act which can turn collective. Time stills, friendships are forged—these social repercussions charge cigarettes with some kind of poetry, and so, they're kind of corny when you talk about them.
I find it uncomfortable to reflect upon cigarettes for many reasons. For one, they are a permanent fixture on New York streets, like pigeons or trash—an aspect of life so un-ceremonial that I’m really magnifying nothing by writing an entire article about it. My first cig was very anticlimactic. I tried a Newport Menthol at a frat party and didn’t like it (so nothing came of that experience).
My favorite first cigarette story is when my friend agreed to smoke two packs with her crush by the water in Shanghai. She started inhaling the smoke by the tenth cig and became so lightheaded she thought she’d die. She has asthma and the experience was so awful she never smoked again. To paraphrase her words, "It's as if you were five and your dad lets you drink alcohol, but he makes you drink an entire pack of beer and you throw up everywhere."
Many people start with cigs as a social thing, but it falls into routine since it's so easy. When I want to get to know someone better, it’s such a relief to know they smoke. You can shoot them the “Come outside for a cig!” text, no problem. I send old friends the same thing when it feels like time to reconnect (but not to catch up indefinitely—that’s too serious). It’s the lowest common denominator when you go to school in New York. To be specific, Marlboro 27s connect a lot of people—as well as a disdain for menthols, especially Camel Crush. (I don't think I'll ever get the menthol animosity.) Back home in Chicago, at least on my friend's campus, Marlboro Reds are the thing. I guess people who are constantly around each other develop similar tastes.
In New York, you meet a lot of people, especially when you're outside smoking a cig and especially when you run out and "have to" ask someone to bum one. At that point, good social graces oblige you to make conversation. It's casual, like a cigarette. New York is a city of eight million people, and what better way to navigate than with a 27?
