I used to bring my pipe to the softball field, last year. I was playing in a Senior league.
Smoking of the odd cigar was tolerated, and one or two guys would stand off between innings and pull on their coffin nails, but I was the only one with a pipe.
I always got conversation going as a result.
One guy would always come over and intentionally get a whiff of my smoke and smile and tell me he loved it.
Another, would cringe and turn away just at the sight of the pipe. He got over it eventually.
I did my best to proselytize, and even shared some tobacco with a former pipe smoker who gave it another shot and brought in his pipe to show me.
When I mentioned the forums and that one of the guys had sent me a really nice Savenelli Autograph Freehand, one of the softball players I barely knew flippantly asked me if the benefactor was gay. ( why else, he reasoned, would one man be so generous to another?)
The implication, of course, was that perhaps I batted for the other team.
I was only visiting, and hadn't been playing for about 6 months, and this particular guy was 'new' to me and me to him.
It's amazing how that made me angry inside.
But, I am a pretty confident fellow, and quickly adjusted my thoughts to his motivations and attained a less emotional perspective.
My face is fairly expressive of my thoughts, and I know that he realized he was out of bounds with me, even joking like that.
My spoken response was more measured and neutral, yet enough for him to get the idea that his schoolboy locker room latency was readily apparent, and childish to me.
Yeah, pipe smoking involves oral gratification. We are born with the need to gratify ourselves orally.
We usually grow out if it as the milk drys up.
Thank god for pipes and tobacco.