Idea that the problem may actually be milder than you think - very important post for everyone
DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor or medical professional of any kind, and nothing here is medical advice.
Here is the idea I just had: I was wondering about the issue of how people usually report that different people have widely varying responses to being on the receiving end of people with this condition. When there is smell that is bad, but also SUBTLE, people tend to have very widely varying responses to it. I have always been quite sensitive to subtle bad smells, in spite of having a history of this condition myself. This is part of the reason I never blamed anyone for reacting badly to me.
There is a subtle perspiration scent that only comes after doing physically strenuous exercise/work, and does not result from sweating from heat (I could do a post on this), when talking about normal people with no TMAU like disorders. This smell is subtly bad, but I personally hate it (if coming from myself) and can't stand it, and this is the kind of thing where peoples responses will vary a great deal. When I was a young kid the teacher would sometimes have us put our heads down on the desk (I think so we could anonymously raise our hands in response to questions). I remember how much I hated the subtle, but negative smell of the fake wood desk when we did that. Other people would not mind the smell at all. I always take a deep breath of clean air and try and hold my breath before I enter a public bathroom - but other people don't mind the smell. They aren't actually completely indifferent to it, they are just not that sensitive to it and don't mind it.
If you have read my posts, I talked about how I solved my problem a long time ago through dietary change, and how I since gained the ability to smell myself (if there is anything to smell). When I smell myself, I am putting my nose in my shirtsleeve and deeply inhaling. Logically, the smell would have to have been diluting a great deal over distance, where other people would smell it. If you put your nose near any household object and inhale, it will have a smell you probably never detected before.
Now, this is complicated by the fact that a smell coming from someone else is inherently much more offensive than one coming from yourself, even if the smells detected are the same. Think about how you are not disgusted by using the toilet, but would be disgusted by having to watch and smell a stranger doing the exact same thing. The issue of how people of different genders will be disgusted by a certain smell is another important factor that complicates things. Generally, females will be much more disgusted by a negative male smell than another male will.
When I look back at the widely varying responses that people had to me, the conclusion I am now reaching is that the smell they were able to pick up was indeed negative but it was also subtle. This possibility is not a brand new revelation, I have considered it as a possibility for a long time, but its only now that I am starting to see this as the most likely explanation.
While I now think that what most people were picking up was a subtle bad smell, at the same time, some people genuinely hated it even though it was likely subtle in nature, by the time it reached their nose and had diluted in the air. With subtle bad smells, the more someone is exposed, usually the less tolerant they become of it, rather than the reverse. This could be a major factor as well. Think about the people who don't tolerate you well and how often you have been around them. A bad smell that is tolerable when you pass by a stranger could become unbearable if its coming from someone you sit near all day at work for months or years on end. Usually, a bad smell either becomes progressively more or less tolerable over time, if someone is regularly exposed to it.
If correct, this would explain why people have widely varying responses to being on the receiving end of this condition - because when it comes to subtle bad smells, humans have very widely varying responses. The traditional model that I accepted was that everyone's nose works the same way (barring some kind of dysfunction or something) and that there are a small number of people willing to make open comments about someone smelling bad, and there is a much larger number of people thinking and feeling the exact same thing, they just wouldn't ever make open, mean comments about it, right in front of the person. There also appear to be a small number of people who clearly don't have an issue with it. Either they are not offended by it, or they actually can't smell it.
What I think now is that its actually a bit of a mystery what the average person on the receiving end is really thinking and feeling. Its quite possible that they are suffering in silence, but maybe they genuinely can tolerate the smell well. Again, when it comes to subtle bad smells, people vary very widely in their tolerance for them. If I am not going out anywhere, and skip the days shower for whatever reason, there are very subtle negative physical feelings that I absolutely can't stand, which is why I would not normally do this. Other people have very different responses to this kind of thing.
Another way to look at this is in terms of the idea of 'disgust sensitivity'. People vary very widely in how tolerant they are of distasteful things. For example, think about the issue of guys who scratch their crotch in public (I never do that by the way!). People have widely varying degrees of disgust to seeing this. Usually, the less nice a person is, the more sensitive they are to distasteful things, like being on the receiving end of a TMAU like disorder.
The smell I had was its own unique thing, so I can't describe it except to say that it was a clearly negative smell. Most people here seem to report fecal odors. While that is clearly a negative smell, do you really know how intense it is or isn't for most people on the receiving end of it? Keep in mind that any smell dilutes in the air and diminishes with distance. So, is it really the case that the smell is overpowering? Or is it actually subtle, but there are some people who genuinely hate it and can't stand it, while most people find it to be tolerable, because of its weak and subtle nature? If you can smell yourself, its very important to pay attention to the things I talked about earlier, about how on the one hand the smell would dillute and diminish with distance, but the other hand there are complicating factors that push in the other direction, in terms of how people percieve this.
When I was in school there was teacher who was hugely overweight (400+ lbs.) and there was a very mild fecal smell when she was in a room for a while as a result. By the way, being severely overweight is a possible cause of malodor conditions, probably because the body is being pushed so hard to metabolize so much food. It was only recently that I was able to pin down that this was indeed some kind of mild fecal smell. Anyway, the smell in the case was the very definition of something that people would be expected to have widely varying levels of tolerance for. I tolerated it well enough, but I am sure there would be a percentage of people who couldn't stand it.
The rotten fish smell of the true form of TMAU would follow the same model as FBO, where perhaps what most people are smelling is something that is often greatly diminished by the time it reaches their nose, but some people still just hate it anyway and can't/won't tolerate it. This would be especially true if people have to be exposed to it day after day.
The inspiration for the ideas in this post largely came from thinking about all these stories I read about people with TMAU like malodor conditions who are able to find romantic partners, and the people who try things like dating apps and everything works out just fine.
If you think about the concepts I laid out in this post, hopefully it has a positive impact on the way you feel about the issue of being around other people. Personally, in my case I don't think it would have changed much. When I had my condition and was around people who weren't making comments or anything, I treated it as a mystery whether they were really not bothered by it, or if they were just too nice to say anything. I knew that I wouldn't dream of making comments if I was on the receiving end of something like that. I knew I would just unhappily sit there, or move somewhere else if possible, if I was in their shoes. When I look back now, its still a mystery what these people were really experiencing.
So here is an idea to think carefully about: when people make comments about someone smelling bad and its clear they are talking about you, yes this is probably really what is happening. HOWEVER...maybe these people are having a very unreasonable and intolerant reaction to what is actually a mildly negative smell, and perhaps they are not actually saying out loud what everyone else is thinking after all. I am not saying this is necessarily the case, but this idea is something that every person here should carefully think about.
The reason why I don't think that having a 'smell buddy', while clearly a good idea, is more than a partial solution, is because its clear that peoples reactions to this vary so widely.
The other day I made what I think is an important post where I lay out a whole new hypothesis that TMAU like malodor conditions are not actually metabolic disorders after all, but rather the bodies extremely misguided attempt to provide you with an alluring scent. See my profile for the post if you are interested.
EDIT: I wanted to add that in my case, once I gained the ability to smell myself, I learned that indeed it was a negative smell (mostly underarm sweat originating) that was well out of the normal range of underarm sweat and would cut through any deodorant scent, and its understandable that people had a problem with this. However, at the same time, the actual smell was significantly less bad than what I had been imagining it to be, when I was forced to use my imagination to fill in the blanks, based on other peoples reactions. I was imagining things like a rotten meat smell, and the reality was not as bad as something like that, though it was still a bad smell.
If people are telling you that you have fecal odor for example, your imagination is likely coming up with something horrific. Maybe it really is, but there is a good chance that its actually much weaker and more subtle in nature than you are imagining. Assuming that only a minority of people you encounter actually have a visible reaction to you, this is more likely than the idea that everyone is just acting like saints in the face of an extreme malodor condition. It is key to note that the nature and intensity of the smell must vary widely for different people - there is no 'one size fits all' answer with something like this.
Like I said, the basic model where only a small number of people would have the nerve to openly make comments in front of someone about this, and so they are saying what everyone else is thinking, is still a reasonable model. The idea that instead, the people making comments are having a very unreasonable and intolerant reaction to an actually mild smell is also a reasonable model though, and so its a bit of a mystery which is really more likely.
If you realize that the second model is a serious possibility, that may significantly change and improve the way you view your situation though. So, the situation could go from a clear disaster to a mystery, which would be a major improvement. There is no way to do an experiment to see how a group of people actually would react to a mild vs. serious malodor situation, to get to the bottom of this. You can't really figure out if most people don't react/make comments because they are not that offended by the smell, or if its that they really are offended but wouldn't dream of saying anything out loud.
The other day I made what I think is an important post where I lay out a whole new hypothesis that TMAU like malodor conditions are not actually metabolic disorders after all, but rather the bodies extremely misguided attempt to provide you with an alluring scent. See my profile for the post if you are interested.
