So I went to Disney World last weekend. I had planned as if vaping would be limited to designated smoking areas, even though I didn't find anything one way or another posted on site that said that
I'd read online that Disney had made statements to that effect. Which is fine. I felt no more need to vape than I used to feel a need to smoke at a place like that, and I was traveling with three smokers. So, pretty much half of our days were spent finding out where the smoking sections were, walking to the smoking sections, and then sitting in the smoking sections while the smokers got their fix.
What I wasn't expecting was that I would get really annoyed at my smoker friends. REALLY annoyed. It started in the car on the way down, traveling with a close friend who I've known for about 4 years. She was chain smoking on the way down
I mean literally lighting one off the .... of another. Which, fine, I'd be lying if I said I'd never done the same thing. But since I've stopped smoking, I am aware of how horrible it smells, and how nasty the smoke is. I would never presume to tell her she couldn't smoke in her own car, and I live in fear of becoming one of "those people", the reformed ex-smoker, possibly only slightly less annoying than the loud door to door religious proselytizer. But it was super bugging me. And then, she starts complaining about my vaping. It smells. It's giving her a migraine. If I'm going to do it, I need to roll the window all the way down and not just crack it, and make sure I blow "that stuff" completely out of the car. (She's only cracking her window to smoke, mind you, because it's pouring down rain outside)
So fine. I have an eGrip with an rba and am currently vaping my own mixture of Rear-Diff/Charlie's Custard/Valyrian Ore that I like to call "Death By Pumpkin.' I'm not blowing huge clouds, and I don't ever blow my vapor in anyone's face. But it acts similar to smoke, enough that in a moving car some of it is going to get sucked back in and haze around inside. How she could smell it over the reek of burning turd that is cigarette smoke, I don't know. She continues to chain smoke the entire trip, pausing only to occasionally hose herself down with Vanilla body spray (which will give me hives if it gets on my skin, but that's my problem and so I'm careful not to come into contact with it rather than complaining because she's using it).
But this BS continued the entire trip. Apparently, any flavor that I vaped produced a "smell" that was horribly nauseating and bothersome to three adult chain smoking women who were also all bathing themselves in body spray between smokes. I had to be careful in the smoking areas to stand so that my vapor went away from their direction, or they'd start coughing. They were acting about my vaping the way non-smokers act about smoking. I tried not to let it get to me, but it put a serious damper on the trip. I felt like a leper, like even in the smoking section I was the one doing something super bothersome and so I had to segregate myself further away from even the smokers just to do my thing. I only saw one other person vaping the entire trip
and he was puffing on an MVP walking right down Main Street in Magic Kingdom and nobody said boo to him.
And at the end of the trip, there I was, my eyes feeling like they were full of gravel, my throat raw, my hair and clothes smelling disgusting, between the three of them smoking in the car and hanging out in the smoking section all day
I might as well have just smoked. It really made me think about the practice of putting vapers in the "smoking" section. Part of the reason I quit smoking was to get away from the smoke and the smell, but there I was in the middle of it. And being groused at by smokers, like I was the low person on the totem pole and my habit was somehow worse than their habit. I don't know if my vapor really is that bothersome (my husband, my non-smoking mom, and my non-smoking friends all say NO) or if
and this might be stretching
my smoking friends were somehow bothered because I wasn't "one of them" anymore and were trying to bully me back into the fold. (They did offer, repeatedly, because they just couldn't see how vaping was as "good" as a cigarette, and didn't believe me when I told them I found it much more pleasurable.)
I just erred on the side of keeping the peace, kept my mouth shut, and went on with my trip. Has anyone else experienced this kind of stuff from smoking friends? Is it possible that vapor could cause or worsen someone's migraine? I'm trying not to continue to have hurt feelings about it, but TBH it kinda makes me not want to hang out with these friends again in the future. If I were constantly bugging them about smoking, trying to convert them to vaping, etc I could maybe see them acting this way
but that is really not who I am, and I only discuss vaping and the fact that it helped me quit smoking with people if they ask directly.
