Extremist (Anti-Casualist) Bastards

Smokers, as opposed to people who smoke, contain amongst their number an extremist group who only respect other smokers who are addicted to nicotine and do at least 20 a day; and they consider anyone who casually smokes - on occasion and through choice - as inferior apostates who deserve to burn (or smolder) in Hell.  These people are Anti-Casualist Bastards.

There is an attitude rife in our society that mirrors the violently prejudiced intolerance of religious extremists, but is applied to some of the most mundane lifestyle choices that people make.  These extremists refuse to entertain the idea that something for which they nurse a deep passion or addiction can be enjoyed by non-zealots.  Smoking has always been one.  I was a smoker for a time as a young man, because I enjoyed it (and I believed I looked fucking awesomely cool), but I was the recipient of generously deployed disdain from proper smoker friends.  The fact that I smelt less bad than they did, squandered less money on fags and could never compete with the sheer amount of shit in their lungs and capillaries made me a pariah and isolated me from their closed-shop collective.  They “owned” smoking and I was a casual thief.

Football is the same.  Until I recently fell out of love with the game, I moved in the midst of arrogant fans who cursed – with a joviality totally concealed by animosity – anyone who claimed to be a supporter, but didn’t go to every possible match.  Should anyone care even less about a team, should they dare to “quite support Arsenal” by keeping an eye on most results and merely preferring them to other teams, then these extremist bastards would seek to arm these casual fans with bells, campaign to have them deported to a leper colony and refuse them the right to even mention the sacred name of their team.

There are charity-shop users who scowl at the rest of us for buying anything new, when there is so much barely soiled clothing available  cheaply (albeit not really much cheaper than the sweat-shop-produced cheap-as-cheap-labour clothing that lines the aisles of the major supermarkets).

There are vegetarians who would tear with their teeth at the flesh of casual vegetarians.

There are commuters who can detect casual train-users by their bewildered looks, inability to dart to the correct area of a platform where the train doors line up and by their propensity for politeness.  This weaker species is in danger of being stared at in an aggressive manner by extremist commuters, just for turning up and stealing the precious little amounts of oxygen available within a carriage.

If we’re going to speculate on the psychological compunctions behind such anti-casualism, then perhaps it is part of our natural territorial instincts; that desire that no one should piss on your piss; in which case the only solution for us casualists is simply that.  If you don’t commute but have to travel in rush hour, just piss yourself a space on the platform; and if you fancy a casual fag outside a pub one day, piss a ring around yourself to ward off the smokers.