So what can we do about it? I think there's several options:
One approach here, which I don't think falls into the three listed, is to start by implicitly offering a concession and give everyone a chance to accept or refuse it. For example, "Where can I go to smoke?" might work well in your example, since it is implicitly offering to go somewhere else to do so; if everyone agrees, "You don't have to go anywhere," you can assume they are really unbothered or at least not weighting their own dislike enough to feel you have wronged them.
One approach here, which I don't think falls into the three listed, is to start by implicitly offering a concession and give everyone a chance to accept or refuse it. For example, "Where can I go to smoke?" might work well in your example, since it is implicitly offering to go somewhere else to do so; if everyone agrees, "You don't have to go anywhere," you can assume they are really unbothered or at least not weighting their own dislike enough to feel you have wronged them.