I stepped in a puddle the other day but I don’t have a spare pair of shoes. I was also in a rush to meet someone that day.
When I was standing up I can’t smell my shoes but then again when I’m upright I’m usually on the move, so the air going in and out of my nose is constantly refreshed. The person I talked to didn’t complain about my shoes but maybe he was just being nice.
When I’m sitting down, I faintly smell my shoes. If my nose is 6 feet from my feet when I’m upright, and the other person was about 3 feet away and also 6 feet something tall, then his nose was somewhere between 6 and 7 feet away from my shoes.
I mean it could be that I’m accustomed to my own scent so I can’t smell it unless it’s really strong, but my shoes’ scent are really strong.
Also, when I have a dry mouth, and I breath into my hand and smell it, it’s pretty bad but when I move my hand to arm’s length it’s gone. I doubt I talked to him at closer than arm’s length. How do people detect bad breaths or bad shoe scent when they’re not super close?
Don’t forget that humans are usually warmer than the surrounding air. Imagine that you were on fire. A pillar of flame closely hugs your body and rushes upwards in a narrow column above your head, then hits the ceiling and spreads outward, then down along the walls. That’s roughly what your invisible heat plume looks like (only much slower of course.) Unless your legs are extended far from your body, almost certainly your shoe-stench will be pulled into this plume.
If you’re indoors, the room air will rotate through your heat plume many times, mixing shoe-scent into the relatively small air volume. If you’re in a large hall or outdoors, the stench of your heat plume will be lost in the vastness, although people on a balcony above you might get hit with the full force, unless air ducts are adding circulation that disrupts your vertical column.
Buy some incense sticks and wave them around to inject smoke at points of interest. (Keep waving them, so the smoke doesn’t develop an vertical column caused by the incense heat itself.) Whatever the smoke does, the invisible stench also will do.
Air currents play a big part also. Do not stand up wind of someone you don’t want to smell your funky shoes.
I know what you mean about getting shoes wet and them stinking. I bought some el-cheapo’s at wally world and they were really bad smelling when wet. I think the insoles were made out of dog shit!
Also some people are hyper sensitive with smell and the blind are very much so.
Also, is there a less scientific explanation of the pillar?
If my feet are in my shoes, the scent is suppressed by my foot. However I usually don’t tie my shoelaces because my shoes hurt my feet (I really have to get new ones). Therefore the tongue doesn’t cover all of the top of my feet.
I’m indoors and I just stood up and still for about a minute.
I couldn’t smell my feet. Only when I sit down can I smell my feet. If I don’t smell my feet when I’m standing up, then is it safe to assume that the other person didnt either? I don’t want to go apologizing for something he didnt even notice.