I am not sure what type of meeting you were at but these days smoking anything with a group of people outside or not has turn into something negitve. Most non smokers will tolerate cigarettes outside more then they will cigars. I guarantee you 3 or 4 guys smoking cigars in a group that is not consider a herf there's going to be some people that can not tolerate the smoke. Those guys might of been hyper-vigilant about that but did not want to make you feel bad because you wanted to smoke. or they just wanted to smoke with their real friends....