It did, it made me look cool. You can't deny it. There are some people to whom smoking signifies a member of cool society. Of course, I know the EX response: those people themselves weren't very cool or secure and shouldn't be the people I search for approval from. Yeah yeah, well of course I've grown up since then. But there were certainly reasons why I smoked to make up for my insecurity.
I looked older. I still get carded for R-rated movies if I shave. The way I held that cigarette and flicked it away with determination and confidence, like an old-hand experienced smoker, ooh, that's not a boy, that's a man. A man hacking up a nasty green loogie on the sidewalk, but a man nonetheless.
I didn't look like a nerd. I have glasses, I'm a skinny little bastard, and I have many superhero t-shirts. (The green Superman tee rocks, by the way.) Of course I know my way around a computer, but I wouldn't know World of Warcraft if a goblin sprite king bit me in the tuchus. But with a cigarette in my hand, you could tell I didn't live in my parents' basement. Just in the shadow of the anxiety and insecurity they instilled in me.
I was badass. Oh man, when I'm driving down the street with my James Brown pumping from the stereo, windows wide open, puffing away at a smoke, I wasn't a poser. I was a white boy with soul. Speaking of which...
I could blast loud music. Even in the winter, if I was chain-smoking I had an excuse to roll down the car windows and share the groove with the world. Except when cops passed by-- then the volume was down and I was just your standard everyday stressed-out DC whackjob.
I was a bad boy. Chicks dig scars, and some nutty chicks even dig black lungs. Hey baby, I don't care about myself. I cross railroad tracks in the dark just for the thrill of it, and I bake kittens into pies. You know you wanna roll with me. Especially you self-cutters.
You didn't mess with me. Walking down a sketchy avenue, I feared not, because I carried a weapon: a flaming stick that easily could go right in your eye. F with me and you're going home a cyclops, sucka.
Of course, now I just have confidence and cojones instead. Besides, chewing a piece of gum makes me look cool. Nonchalant. You know you wanna roll with that.
