artificial and/or alcohol-carried smells /my coworker went out of their way to accommodate me
icon: "contemptuous (my face with bold cat-eye makeup, with a disgusted expression: eyebrows drawn together and down, eyes wide, lips curled up in the middle and down to the sides in an exaggerated frown)"
People who wear a truckload of perfume or body spray, or use hyper-scented soaps & personal cleansers upset me SO MUCH. I would rather someone spray themselves with urine instead of perfume -- that is how gross it is to me. It really overwhelms me and feels like as much of an invasion as if they stuck their fingers up my nose. I'd rather be hanging out with an effluvia-trailing farter than a floral-chemical-doused person.
I really do hate that I am so sensitive now that that absolutely is a deciding factor in whether or not I can be friends with someone, but it definitely is. I just can't want to be in the same room with someone who wears loud smells. I got a fancy reusable breathing filter mask which looks very futuristic-thief, and I'm keeping it in my backpack now for when clueless or terrible people decide that their right to dowse themselves in scent trumps my right to breathe.
Speaking of which, I feel super terrible for judging my coworker for not keeping their word about not wearing perfume. It turned out that they did indeed stop wearing it and the real problem was their deodorant. I found out because our office got re-organized and now our desks are close together, and after a few days I couldn't stand it anymore and I sent them a message asking them again to stop wearing perfume.
They told me that they haven't worn perfume in months, and I expressed confusion and asked if they wore a spray deodorant. They said no, that they wore roll-on, and I asked for the brand so I could look up ingredients. As I suspected, it contained alcohol (usually just present in sprays) which when combined with a scent almost always gives me trouble as it helps the scent float in the air. They offered to stop wearing it to see if that helped and I said yes please. Then they stopped wearing it and I had no more issue! SUCH RELIEF. I honestly want to hug them and give them presents every time I think about it.
I feel so guilty and mean for thinking they were lying to me, when they have given me no cause to think they would lie. It's just that when they said they would stop wearing perfume, the smell didn't go away but it did improve, and it didn't occur to me that it could be that they stopped wearing one allergen but were wearing a second different one, especially since they smelled very similar (I'm guessing they were always competing smells that seemed to me like one smell). I'm also so so relieved that it isn't a hair product or other thing that they can't do without. It is such a relief to come into the office and be able to breathe freely.