“Of course, he was a smoker so he probably enjoyed annoying others and not caring what they thought about him. “
I gave up those nasty cigarettes well over 20 years ago.
To this day I can’t stand being around annoying tobaccophobes.
And I am not one but I have spent a good deal of time in bars and restaurants which contained both smoking and non-smoking sections and my personal experience is that smokers are less considerate of others and often act more like jerks. That's a generality, of course. Every rule has exceptions.
But I do believe that his personality and smoking addiction were not unrelated.