Smoking alone means you can do whatever you want and nobody can bitch about it, but when you're in a group, there's a set of rules you ought to be following. These stoner pet peeves probably won't get you kicked out of the circle, but they'll definitely cause your invitation to be reconsidered the next time your friends are about to light up, so check 'em out and adapt!
1. Parking
This is the sacred art of sitting on your ass with the bong or joint in your hand doing absolutely nothing. You may have already taken your hit, you might have forgotten to even take one, the point is that the bud is in your hands and you're keeping the circle from moving along. It's cool if you occasionally forget that you still have the piece, your group will remind you eventually, but try not
2. Not Cornering The Bowl
When you're not cornering the bowl that really only leaves two options: you're not hitting the bowl at all, or, you're torching it. One will disappoint you and make your friends chuckle, the other will just piss your friends off for cashing the bowl so fast. Of course, there are many cases where being unable to corner the bowl isn't your fault, such as if there's a draft or if you're new to the toking game.
3. Not Ashing The Bowl/Blunt Correctly
My friends like to play this horrible game when smoking joints at my place to try and keep from tapping the ash off the joint as long as possible. This has resulted in the dropping of huge ash nuggets onto my coffee table and carpet almost a dozen times already. (By the way, don't be those dumbasses, most people will get more pissed than I.) You should strive to not make a total mess in your hosts's house, so tap out the joint or blunt often, just make sure you're not breaking it when you're tapping it!
Clearing out bowls follows similar guidelines, it's important to follow your host's usual method of cleaning out bowls, whether it be clearing the remaining ash into the bong by lighting the remaining bud in the bowl and inhaling, using a tool to clear out the ash, or simply shaking the bowl over a trashcan.
4. Bogarting
Hogging the joint or bong, taking multiple hits on your turn, is all also known as 'bogarting.' Bogarting is a common affliction in stoner circles. More often than not when someone is bogarting it's either because they provided the bud or they forgot they already took their hit, so it's not super offensive. However, rarely, you'll actually meet someone who takes two or more bong rips on their turn, or rips off the blunt 10 times before passing it along. They're the worst kind of mooches, the kind that don't even ask.
5. Consistently Showing Up Empty-Handed
If you're that guy who always shows up on Friday night empty handed and you're wondering every time you go back over if they're ever gonna notice, trust me, they're gonna notice. If you're straight up with your group more often than not they'll still smoke you out if even if you didn't contribute. That's because of one of the most basic principles of stoner courtesy: Returning the favor. The general assumption is that if you show up empty-handed one night then on the next night you'll be able to cover your end, and possibly someone else in your crew if they're empty handed. It's all about helping each other out, but we can't do that if you're trying to work the system and always smoke for free!
6. Never-Ending Bud Requests
Don't be that guy who sends five texts within twenty minutes asking all of your friends if they have any, it's just obnoxious and not smart. Not only will that land you on the fast track to being barred from circles, it'll also likely land you on the block list for most the people you bombard with texts, then you won't get anything from anybody ever. Practice moderation and patience, it's likely your friend saw your text, but isn't available at that moment to talk about what you're looking for. Give them a few hours, and if still no response you can send another text, but don't bombard them with texts and calls or they'll never respond.
7. Bringing Obnoxious Guests
A lot of stoners who host circles often will be fairly open to meeting new people if one of the original stoners in the circle vouches for the new individual(s). Please note: bringing someone new into a stoner circle is not something that should be taken lightly. Once bringing someone in, it's not always the easiest thing to kick them back out again, so if you bring over that one friend who's always hitting you up for bud, and begins to hit up the entire circle, you might end up losing your invitation privileges.
This pet peeve especially applies to boyfriends or girlfriends. While your friends should have to put up with your significant other to a certain extent, it's also your responsibility to not allow your S.O. to be a tool and disregard stoner courtesy.
8. Wet-Lipping The Joint/Mouthpiece
When you bring a rolled joint to your group you're really only asking one thing, "Don't fuck up this masterpiece I crafted for you while we're getting lit." However this still seems to be a difficult concept for some folks. The easiest way to kill the joy of smoking a joint for everyone in the group is to apply lipstick or chap stick before the joint gets to you. If you hit a joint and the next person who hits it experiences a tip covered in: saliva, lip stick, chap stick, a beverage, etc., congratulations, you've been wet-lipping the joint. It's truly not a hard problem to solve, it's not like you need to try out your lips with a towel, just be aware of the fact that other people are hitting off the joint that probably don't want to taste your cherry lip balm.
9. Mixing Up The Smoking Order
Left is law. Left is law. Left is law. LEFT IS LAW. That's not me trying to be a hard-ass about it, that's me reminding you that the simplest way of determining who gets the joint or bong next HAS ALREADY BEEN DETERMINED. Stoners in countries all around the world know this simple rule, so just learn it, know it, love it, and let's end smoking order confusion!
10. Getting Unnecessarily Paranoid
I personally believe there are appropriate times to be paranoid. When you're walking down the street in the middle of the night and you notice rustling noises coming from a alley a little ways up, so you decide to walk a different way home? I call that reasonable paranoia. When we're sitting in my house lighting up eating Ho-Ho's and you're in the corner crying because you believe my neighbor's cat is plotting to kill you and you're not ready to defend yourself? You might need to calm down there buddy.
When you start to feel yourself getting seriously paranoid in a stoner situation, it's your responsibility to calm yourself down, or, notify the appropriate person in your stoner circle so that they might help you calm down before ruining your trip. Sometimes paranoia can't be avoided, but there are ways you can help prevent it.
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These are just some of the pet peeves that really get me, did we miss any? Let us know in the comments!