“I have a really acute sense of smell”

[INXS]

I know it’s not something anyone can do anything about. But whenever I hear a statement like the one in the title, it sort of sounds like the person with the nose like a bloodhound is secretly quite proud of their extra special abilities to detect cigarette smoke from one hundred paces, or the smell of someone else’s unwashed bra.

But I don’t like the idea of people who are, unbeknownst to us norms, secretly revolted by everyone around them. That they know that I ate a curry last night, and are resentful that I was so rude as to eat something with spices the day before going out in public (I actually read that on here). That my house stinks to them, or that they have to scrub their house after I’ve been to visit.

AIBU to dislike the idea of someone else having a supernatural sense of smell?! It makes me not want to be around them!

[theymademejoin]

Oh, and no more than our sense of smell, we are also variable in what we find interesting. I find the thread very interesting.

[Weedsnseeds1]

I wouldn't say my sense of smell was great, but OH will be happily sitting watching TV, while I scramble out of the bath in response to billowing smoke from the kitchen. His sense of smell is shit!
On the other hand, my sense of taste is pretty good ( strangely as smell and taste are linked). I would be excellent at one of those " identify 20 ingredients in this dish" challenges in cookery programs.
I actually think in flavour a lot of the time. Certain emotions and situations have a taste.

[Busterb00]

I have this but not to the extent some people here have. I can smell who has been in the lift at work.

The downside is being turned off food which other people think is fine. I also feel nauseous when people have BO, halitosis, cheap perfume.

I think I should have gone into a food tasting career ( wine tasting????).

[INXS]

“OP got all pissy and insisted her thread is very interesting”

Just to be clear, i don’t consider it interesting because it is “my” thread. It is because of the interesting contributions that posters have made, nowt to do with me.

Laughing at colonels pine-shaped air freshener necklace idea!

[IHeartKingThistle]

Oh God, I had blanked this out until I read this thread.

Years ago, my lovely friend's creepy dickhead DH (now exDH thankfully) looked straight at me and said he had an amazing sense of smell and could smell when a woman was on her period. I WAS ON MY PERIOD.

[Skowvegas]

However, can't be doing with the moaning on MN about people who have the temerity to - shock - wear perfume!

They give me migraines. Sorry for moaning. But migraines are fucking hideous.

[okeydokeygirl]

I have an acute sense of smell. It is really not something I enjoy and can stop me doing lots of things. There are so many normal smells that I cannot be around. It is my problem and I have worked ways around it. Some things though fill me with dread. Like going on a training course that provides a sandwich lunch. Even worse if it is brought into the training room. I have to discretely excuse myself but I find it almost impossible to get through the afternoon session. I have a massive long list of other stuff. For me me something like stale body odour would be managebe as it is normal to not like that but not being able to be in the same room that someone has opened a jar of pickle or pate is a bit bonkers. Or sitting next to someone with.perfume that gives me an instant headache and makes me want to puke is tricky sometimes. I have been known to identify what my husband has eaten earlier in the day just by smelling the room he ate it in. And I don't mean a curry or fish or anything like that. He thinks it is really spooky..for.me it can be a royal pita.

[INXS]

iheart yeah that is creepy as hell. Prick.

I do have vague doubts when people say things like “I can smell when someone has had sex” - it’s not the kind of thing you could ever confirm with them, so how can you be so sure? Maybe they just have a vague funk about them?

Similarly when people have their period. Is the smell really that distinctive? Preseumably the only menstrual blood they have ever had a “confirmed” smelling of is their own, so too small a sample size to be able to confidently assert that they can smell other’s periods? In the case of the guy above, how would he even know to connect the smell with menstruation? This does sound like a power thing to me, and something that could never be proven, because it’s so personal and awkward.

[IHeartKingThistle]

Still shuddering.

[ScrambledSmegs]

Think you’re being a bit disingenuous here scrambled - surely you wouldn’t have mentioned it if you thought it was the norm?

I mentioned it because I was feeling left out by all these super-smellers . But then I remembered that there was a thread a while back where pretty much everyone else on the thread said that they could too so it’s not exactly special. It’s only my family anyway, and when I’m very close/snuggling them. No idea about other people!

[IHeartKingThistle]

Little kids are amazing at smelling aren't they? I remember a thread on here and a primary teacher saying if there was ever an unidentified jumper lying around she'd just get the kids to sniff it and they'd tell her who it belonged to. Maybe some people just never lose that.

[expatinscotland]

How would you smell someone's period if they have a mooncup in? The blood doesn't come out.

[mirialis]

INXS - as said, to me there is a bit of "rusty" smell when someone has their period (which another poster suggested was due to the iron). Unlike smelling sex on someone, yes, women do tell each other when they are on so you do get confirmation of what you'd already detected.

Creepy ex-DH of the pp would not have been privy to the same sort of "do you have a spare tampon/ my cramps are bad this month/ god, I'm so ravenous, stupid hormones" types of conversations with all sorts of other girls and women at school/work/social events though.

[IHeartKingThistle]

It's entirely possible he was lying, of course.

[INXS]

expat if people can smell illness, which isn’t necessarily “on” the body - I guess it’s possible that smells from almost inside the body can be smelled!

Although the blood doesn’t come out, there is an opening there, so I guess smells could escape that way.

I was going to use the smell of a plug hole as a simile - although the smelly matter is inside the drain, you can still smell it - but it seemed like too vile a comparison. Whoops, I wrote it anyway.

I do think though that anyone can say “I can smell women’s periods” and use that as a way to intimidate/shame people, and they will never be called out on it. It would be very rare for a woman to challenge someone saying that. “Go on then, am i on my period?” and people like the man mentioned above rely on that.

[ScrambledSmegs]

It might have been a line he used on lots of women, IHeart. If he used it on enough he was likely to get it right with a certain percentage and discomfit more just because it’s a really creepy thing to say.

[ScrambledSmegs]

It might have been a line he used on lots of women, IHeart. If he used it on enough he was likely to get it right with a certain percentage and discomfit more just because it’s a really creepy thing to say.

[ScrambledSmegs]

Sorry for double post

[MaidenMotherCrone]

I've never mentioned to anyone apart from on this thread about the period detection. Why would I let on I'm some kind of freak.

I don't pick up on a rusty odour or blood or anything to do with vaginas. It's a sickly sweet, slightly mustyness that comes ( I think) from the skin/pores.

As for smelling myself, oh yes and I cannot get away from it. It's nothing to do with washing though. It's just there.

Through in night sweats that make you smell like an old meat pie too. ( me that is)

[MaidenMotherCrone]

Throw not through

[badbadhusky]

I am not a super-duper smeller, but I’m at least 50% bloodhound. I can smell on DH’s breath when his asthma is going to get worse (“liver lungs” - smells like raw liver). I can smell when my kids have tonsilitis. The OOH GP looked really skeptical last time I took DS2 & was surprised to see the start of mucky tonsils when he had a look down his throat. Pregnancy was challenging - especially my walk to work on bin day. Saddest of all, I noticed something “off” about a friend who regularly had pressure sores, but was too polite to mention it - turned out she had a fungating tumour and her late diagnosis meant she didn’t last much longer.

[BillyDaveysDaughter]

I smell weird stuff in odd places (peanut butter when driving along the motorway, coffee when walking in a field, balloons in the kitchen, etc etc) - DH calls it my "tumour" because he thinks I can't possibly be really smelling those things, it's just some freak misfire in my brain.

It's called Hyoperosmia I believe. As well as identifying odd stuff that isn't there, it makes normal smells very intense. It ruined a theatre night for me when the people two rows down smuggled in some kind of spicy chicken, and commuting was difficult - some people have odd odours. The dogs breath is especially vile for me, DH doesn't think it's that bad.

Oh, and the other night DH let the dog out and said, it's getting really cold out there. I murmured that I could smell the frost coming, and he looked at me like this .

But I can smell a frost on the way, and snow - it's a really clear smell to me! Rain has a particular smell too, although I can't precipitate it.

See what I did there

[BillyDaveysDaughter]

MaidenMother I had a recent day surgery, and when I crawled into my own bed after 10 hours trying to shake off the anaesthetic I definitely smelled like an old meat pie! Kinda meaty and cheesy, eww.

I struggled into the shower and sat down to wash, it was too grim.

[INXS]

“Rain has a particular smell too, although I can't precipitate it.”

Haha

The smell after rain is called petrichor.

[crunchymint]

I have read how Drs a hundred years ago used to use smell to help with diagnosis. Some illnesses have a particular kind of smell.

DP thinks it is weird that I can smell when he is getting ill. I will say - are you feeling all right, and its always when he is coming down with something.

Most smells don't bother me at all, even strong ones. And I love the smell of petrol.

And yes of course I can smell that I have a smell. All humans do. I had a shower this morning and can still smell my smell. I love the smell of DP.