Hi Bar Shattya.
Ruling out someone who smokes is the perfect right of the person deciding who to date. Why is it shallow for someone to not want to date a smoker? Smoker/nonsmoker happens to be a big deal to people in dating, the workplace, public events, malls,…etc.
I believe the point was if someone smokes, is that something the other person should be made aware of.
There are perfectly fine people who smoke. But this is not a matter of the guy likes to wear blue ties as opposed to white and black ties.
Who would not want to know if the person they are considering for marriage is a smoker or not? Some won’t rule them out. Some will, and that is their right.
Off the record, smoking is not such a benign thing for a lot of reasons, and will be a very noticeable and intrusive component of sharing their lives together.
The fact that smoking (not the person, necessarily) is very repulsive, annoying, uncomfortable, unclean, and dangerous to nonsmokers and smokers, is not something that can be swept under the carpet during dating. Let the other person know and they can take it from there.
It is not a matter of judging. Smoking is a tangible annoyance to many people and for that reason has been outlawed in public places. So what is so difficult to imagine someone does not want that in their living room for the rest of their lives? Or around their children?
Frankly, smoking is such a known sakana now, you have to somewhat ignorant in thinking on your own to take up smoking. It is deadly, chas v’shalom, in over 70 known ways, and now they are finding it is radioactive from the radon where the plants are grown.
I dont want to hear the ‘relaxing’ argument either, as only those who think smoking is ok would accept such a lame justification. There are smokers who know it is bad and want to quit if they could. Those who see good things in smoking are off the hook, period.