Many romantic scenarios, clichéd or otherwise, involve an act of sharing, whether it’s hopping into the same cab, huddling under the same umbrella, or inadvertently slurping up the same strand of spaghetti. In all of these cases, the effect is largely the same—forging intimacy through some level of generosity or gallantry, coupled with pure, physical proximity—and in 2026, all of them are still technically possible. But more often than not, it seems like would-be lovers these days are sharing one thing in particular: a vape.
Whether you love it or hate it (and there are many, many reasons to hate it), hitting the same vape has become a new metric for closeness, even a new love language. If you spent any time on the internet last week, you probably saw that while Taylor Swift was getting ready for her mammoth wedding at Madison Square Garden, her ex Joe Alwyn was spotted having a lovey-dovey park picnic in London with actor Sarah Pidgeon. The duo were spotted on Hampstead Heath, taking pictures, sharing a bottle of wine, and, yes, taking hits from the same metallic blue vape.
Now, some celebrities would have you believe that, despite the saliva involved, sharing a vape has no inherent romantic subtext. Case in point: the rumors that recently swirled around Ice Spice and Tobey Maguire. The two stars were (very) briefly linked after (very) distant pictures came out, showing them standing close at Michael Rubin’s annual White Party in the Hamptons. The rumors were allegedly shut down by a rep, who said they were merely greeting each other and sharing a vape. But some wondered if that explanation actually clarified anything. (Because, again, saliva exchange and all that.) “This is actually worse than them just kissing,” one commenter argued. After all, it was the very same gesture—but at the Golden Globes—that helped to tip the public off about Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom’s dawning romance back in 2016.
With thanks to the dangerous power of the tobacco lobby, normal smoking has had its role to play in Hollywood courtships since time immemorial; in 1942’s Now, Voyager, Paul Henreid infamously lights two cigarettes in his mouth before passing one to Bette Davis. The only difference is that now, the literal spark that once got things going between possible paramours has been replaced with a plastic doodad attached to a disposable lithium-ion battery and a lot of fruity-flavored smoke.
The vape is, in the end, a product very much of its time. Even beyond the colors and the flavors is the matter of their duration: where cigarettes have a distinct beginning and end, vapes are like the endless scroll of nicotine consumption, lasting for hours. But, at the end of the day, if sharing your cringey, toxic trait with a lover isn’t the peak of 2020s romance, what is?
