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Cigar Education, Peter, Uncategorized learnings

Can cigars bring people together?

Cigars

There is something special about cigars that brings people together. If you go out for a coffee, drink or dinner and ask a stranger what they are drinking or eating, they will most likely look at you and think you are hitting on them and then reject you. If you approach a person who smokes a cigar and ask what they smoke, the probability is high that you will start a long pleasant conversation about the cigar and get to know each other. But why does that happen? The answer is quite simple, yet complicated. It is a common interest, while often common interests in other contexts do not create opportunities for conversation. The question can have many answers, but I think it’s about the interest being more of a strong passion with an incredible number of different flavors and our genetic side.

My guess is

Genetically, humans are built to need a social group. If we look far back in time, it was a way of survival. No social group to be a part of was equal to no shelter, no food, no friends or partners. To survive, you needed to cooperate, pull your load, be social and learn from others by being present. You needed to bring something to the group for example hunters, collector to become a part to make it stronger. It was all about survival instinct.

Today we don’t have the same needs as we did then, we can sleep safely knowing that help is around the corner, food is a walk away in the store, we don’t have to hunt or gather, you can find your partner via the internet.

Let’s include our genetic side, our side we developed that is today and cigars. You go up to a stranger who is smoking a cigar and you ask what he is smoking, then you will most likely get an answer and you will end up in a conversation about cigars which in turn will lead to other topics of conversation. What happens is that a combination of our genetic side and the interest in cigars opens up conversation. The curiosity of the cigar makes you talk to the stranger, which at the same time makes the conversation possible for the genetic side to seek a strong group and opportunity to develop new knowledge. If we compare it to other interests, with cigar smoking you almost always sit still and relax and don’t focus on much else, which makes it possible to talk to others. In other interests, you often have to put much more focus on what you are doing, which requires more concentration, which reduces the possibility of talking to others in the same way.

For me it can go either way. If I sit with a friend and smoke one of my go to cigars, I can sit, laugh and be social. However, if I were to sit with a cigar that i smoke for the first time and the person I’m sitting with doesn’t smoke or smokes another cigar, I usually sit and give the cigar my full attention and am half-involved in the conversation.

How is it for you? Leve a comment below.

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