Some of newer options include Internet. Over past few years, on-line dating has taken off in a way that no one could have predicted, emphasizing perhaps for first time amount of lonely people in world today. As most people utilize these sites from safety of their living rooms, shy can wrap themselves in anonymity and easily make contact within their comfort zone. Unfortunately, there are often predators as well as those with a penchant for being less than truthful who occasionally respond on other side of screen. Still, this can be a method for making successful matches as long as great care is taken. Another method would be off-line dating service although many of them tend to be over priced and equally anonymous. If shopping carefully, there are existing services with integrity, that work at individual comfort levels. There is also possibility of reasonable pricing as well as background screening to increase safety.

One last recommendation from one who shares shyness curse, is simply to find ways to expand your comfort zone. I did this initially by getting a job that forced me to interact with people. The bottom line is shyness isn’t synonymous with cowardice. Take a good look at yourself and decide what improvements are in your ability to make and make them. Meeting and dealing with people will always increase your chances of making a match yourself. If that is your goal, then it has to begin with you.

But not all characters smoke; not all these people down on their luck immediately reach for fags. Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining doesn’t reach for a cigarette despite suffering from what we can only describe politely as a mild bout of depression and paranoia.

In a likewise manner, take Taxi Driver, starring Robert De Niro. De Niro plays part of a Vietnam veteran sickened by society. If ever a character needs to relax with and spark one up, it’s our friend Travis Bickle, yet, no, he decides to relax by doing some DIY that involves a pistol secreted up his arm and a mirror into which he can imagine conversations.

And whilst we’re at it, I don’t want to see Clint Eastwood riding into town, sipping delicately from a bottle of Evian. The subtle nuances would be lost; there’d be something missing.

Smoking exists in society. Therefore, if Hollywood is to reflect society, then there is always going to be characters who smoke and those that don’t. If a character is stressed out, he or she are still unlikely to reach for a Geri Haliwell yoga video.

And are teenagers, whose screen idols smoke, more likely to smoke themselves? I’m more inclined, as others are, to go along with idea of peer pressure, of influences closer to home. I smoke because my friends and parents smoked. I didn’t see Casablanca as a teenager. And it certainly hasn't encouraged me to continue smoking. Film-making is one of arts. Art reflects life. The semiotics of smoking suggests several traits within a single character, this much is true, yet it is so ingrained within Western culture to see a character who smokes as being cool and having a shed load of attitude that this overrides all else. Society must change first, then films will follow suit. Not other way around. Hollywood isn’t that powerful, nor should we ever let it become so.

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