Pheromones/scent

[mongoose]

Have you ever been with someone and you didn't like their smell?

Before my current partner I was with a girl for about 6 months, physically I found her attractive and we got on pretty well but there was something wrong and I couldn't put my finger on it. I just wasn't that attracted to her and towards the end of the relationship I simply didn't like being touched by her, things weren't working out either. I felt really horrible and thought there was something wrong with me. I did some reading on the internet and it hit me, I did not like the way she smelled. She didn't smell bad and she was a very clean and hygienic person but her scent just put some kind of stopper on my brain.

This was the first person I've been with that had this affect. My current partner's smell is more neutral, her scent doesn't send me wild but i'm not turned off by it.

 

[gUt]

At least for straight couples, I believe it's linked to compatibility of immune systems. We instinctively know whether her immune system is likely to abort an attempted impregnation.

One other thing I read once is the contraceptive pill can distort this instinctive intuition. The context was: why do so many couples get divorced so quickly after marriage despite living together perfectly happily for X years before marriage? The theory goes that the couple decides to try for children and so she comes off the pill. Suddenly she is far more attuned to his scent and/or other chemical markers and whether she likes it or not, she loses her attraction to him.

Whether and to what degree this is all really true isn't clear but it's an interesting set of ideas.

 

[mongoose]

At least for straight couples, I believe it's linked to compatibility of immune systems. We instinctively know whether her immune system is likely to abort an attempted impregnation.

One other thing I read once is the contraceptive pill can distort this instinctive intuition. The context was: why do so many couples get divorced so quickly after marriage despite living together perfectly happily for X years before marriage? The theory goes that the couple decides to try for children and so she comes off the pill. Suddenly she is far more attuned to his scent and/or other chemical markers and whether she likes it or not, she loses her attraction to him.

Whether and to what degree this is all really true isn't clear but it's an interesting set of ideas.

Yeah, I've heard this before, very interesting.