Eau Gag Me
I love how my boyfriend smells, but I hate his new cologne. The smell literally makes me queasy. Is it even my place to ask him to stop wearing it? How do I tell him I don't like it without it being mean?
--Plagued
Try to focus on the positive: You find him extremely jumpable whenever he isn't wearing a $185 bottle of what it would smell like if sewage and verbena had a baby.
Unfortunately, it seems that his cologne and your immune system are poorly matched. Biologist August Hammerli and his colleagues find that a person's fragrance preferences correlate with their particular set of infectious intruder-tracking genes, called the "major histocompatibility complex." So, in not liking your boyfriend's cologne, it isn't that you think he's an idiot with bad taste; it's that your...I dunno, great-great-grandma got it on with some hot peasant with the "verbena smells like dead, rotting chickens" gene.
The science is your way in: "Sadly, your cologne does not play well with my genes..." Cushion the blow with something sweet, like, "I know you love it, and I wish I loved it, too." Suggest you shop together for a new cologne for him (ideally something that makes you want to get naked, and not just down to your World War II gas mask).
Seriously are people so cowed out of fear of offending that they can't talk about simple things like this? Instead they have to run to an advice columnist?
Amazed_476 at August 23, 2017 5:15 AM
"Seriously are people so cowed out of fear of offending..."
Yep. Looks like I just need to stay home 24/7, not talk to anyone ever, draw the shades so no one will have their retinas burned by my offensive white pasty self, and withdraw from society at large.
Wait, that's what I do now. Guess we're good, then. Carry on, everybody.
bkmale at August 23, 2017 6:26 AM
Dirty little secret: Wearing cologne is just not that big a deal to most guys. If he's doing it, he's probably doing it because he thinks you like it, not because he really wants to wear cologne. (That or he's trying to cover up BO, but that's a different issue.) The proper approach is, "I appreciate that you put on cologne for me, but that particular one doesn't work well with your body chemistry." (Which is maybe true... how a perfume or a cologne smells in the bottle is not necessarily how it will smell on your body.) "Can I buy you a bottle that might work better for you?" Buy the smallest bottle you can find, so that if that doesn't work either, you aren't out a lot of money. Besides, one bottle will last him for years and years.
Cousin Dave at August 23, 2017 7:08 AM
'Babe, I dont like your cologne, to make it up to you let me give you a hummer while you pour it down the drain'
I dont think any guy gay or straight would ever say no or feel offended
lujlp at August 23, 2017 7:22 AM
I got a new perfume recently and my husband said, "That perfume makes you smell like my mom."
'Nuff said. I dragged him to Sephora and we picked out a scent we both liked.
sofar at August 23, 2017 7:39 AM
@Sofar: "'Nuff said. I dragged him to Sephora and we picked out a scent we both liked."
Heh!
As everyone else so far has said, this doesn't sound like that big of a deal. LW should just tell him that, for whatever reason, she just reacts kind of badly to that cologne, and that they could go and pick out something that works better.
Then buy him lunch. The kind he likes to eat.
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at August 23, 2017 8:15 AM
Hey! I have the solution: Eau de Kaopectate*
• Helps deal with nausea
• Smells faintly like Copenhagen™ smokeless tobacco, improving your appearance to those fond of camouflage
*Available in bonus package with Cajun-Style Visine™ (forget the red, get the eye out!)
-----
My girl walked to the shelf, grabbed the offensive bottle and chucked it in the trash in front of me, which was perfectly OK.
Remember that other column about guys not taking hints?
Radwaste at August 26, 2017 6:36 AM
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