"here's a situation. my boyfriend (a fireman) doesn't want me to smoke.  which is cool, i just quit smoking almost 4 months ago and i don't have  the desire to start back up. BUTTTTTT i don't see anything wrong with  hookah. i think that's totally different, and there's no nicotine or  anything and he wasn't with me. he REALLY REALLY REALLY didn't want me to  smoke it. i was torn, i didn't want him to be upset with me, but at the  same time,i didn't want to miss out on hanging out with my friends  because he didn't want me to do something. so i guess, the advice part  is...... should i not do it out of respect for him and his wishes? or do  it, because i know i'm strong enough to not start back up smoking  cigarettes, and there's nothing that unhealthy about smoking hookah? its  essentially a social thing. not weed or anything like that."

when i searched "Hookah" on Wikipedia...


Dr. Richard D. Hurt, a medical professional at the Mayo Clinic,  claims that smoking a hookah is as dangerous as smoking cigarettes. Each hookah session typically lasts more than 40 minutes, and  consists of 50 to 200 inhalations that each range from 0.15 to 0.50  liters of smoke.  In an hour-long smoking session of hookah, users consume about 100 to 200 times the smoke of a single cigarette in a 45-minute smoking session a typical smoker would inhale 1.7 times the nicotine of a single cigarette. The water used to filter the smoke does not  remove harmful cancer-causing chemicals from the smoke as is believed by  some. However, definitive studies on hookah with proper controls have yet to be made.  There are also alternative smoking mixtures which do not contain  nicotine and tobacco-based products. There have been no studies conducted on the health effects of these non-tobacco based products, but  nonetheless many manufacturers market them as healthier herbal smoking  alternatives to tobacco (which is also technically considered an herbal  smoke). Frequently this herbal substitute is either sugar cane stalk,  sugar cane beets, or tea leaves. The reports on taste of these smoking  mixtures vary widely from each individual.
A study on hookah smoking and cancer in Pakistan was published in 2008. Its objective was "to find serum CEA  levels in ever/exclusive hookah smokers, i.e. those who smoked only hookah (no cigarettes, bidis, etc.)."Hookah smokers had higher levels of  CEA than non-smokers although mean levels were low compared to  cigarette smokers.  Overall CEA levels in exclusive hookah smokers  were low compared to cigarette smokers." The study also concluded that  heavy hookah smoking (2–4 daily preparations; 3–8 sessions a day; 2 to 6  hours net daily smoking time) substantially raises CEA levels

Alright, so based on this, if you're looking to avoid the chemicals or the nicotine period, i wouldn't do it.

whether you should not do it for him or if you think it should be OK and him get over it, when it comes to anything like that you need to make yourself happy first, then oddly enough things generally fall into place on their own creating harmony in all the right places, though with this information id say it would be best to shy away from it considering how important you quitting smoking cigarettes is, and how important your boyfriend is to you <3

Love,
Nikki