The father of one of my clients doesn’t bathe (or shower). He hasn’t had a working tub in his house for years and uses the excuse that he doesn’t have the money to fix it. This means that whenever the kid (who is a teenager) stays at dad’s house, kid doesn’t bathe either. However, the father’s excuse is bullshit for several reasons:
He is a software developer with his own company and enough money to take vacations several times a year.
His ex-wife has offered to have a friend do the repair work, but he turned her down.
Recently when dad and kid returned from vacation in which they stayed in hotels, kid reported that neither of them had showered the entire time.
I didn’t shower every single day this past winter because it was so freezing cold in the house, and getting out of the hot shower into the cold took some fortitude. (If anyone wants to know, I did a top n’ tail ‘ho bath’ in between showers.) In the summer, I’m in the shower twice a day or more, just to cool down!
I’m post-menopausal, and have very dry skin and eczema, so on the advice of my dermatologist, I don’t shower/bathe every day. I do, however, shower several times a week, put on clean underthings every day (I can bring myself to re-wear a pair of pants, but certainly not underclothes! Yuck!), wear deodorant, and do everything I can to keep myself from stinking things up!
The guy in the OP just sounds demented. Maybe some kind of narcissism disorder? Oh, and for some reason, the idea of coming home from a job as a fry-cook and not showering/totally changing clothes is almost more disgusting than moldy feet! We rented a room for a while to a girl who worked at McD’s. She was very clean, but she still stank to high heaven of stale grease when she got home from work. Her work clothes smelled of stale grease even after laundering!
FWIW, he wasn’t as smelly as you might think, but he was certainly smelly. Mind you, I smoked back then so perhaps I was spared some of the funk due to my own blocked up sinuses.
I also didn’t get really super close to him 'cus I was dating his brother and that would be weird.
What about a different group of non-bathers who are otherwise mentally sane: hippies. I live in a town that is absolutely filled with old-school hippies. They seem to prefer surroundings that are “natural”, not manicured. They make a LOT of money in their careers, but live in houses with unruly yards, and an appearance that looks like they should cited for several code violations. They drive beater Volvos bricks held together with hemp twine. They have gray hair, even those in their 30s and 40s. The women wear no makeup. Many also don’t bathe.
I had a roommate in college whose boyfriend didn’t bathe. He said soap was a conspiracy by the man to wash away your natural pheromones and decrease your sex drive. He also had dreads and only ever wore the same shirt/pants. The stink was unreal - he would sit on my couch, and the couch itself would reek for days. I finally had a talk to her about it (she claimed she thought his smell was sexy), but luckily they didn’t stay together for long. She was such a prissy girl, I really don’t understand how she stood it. I went through a lot of Febreeze.
The other was another roommate who was one of the aforementioned hippies that didn’t think she needed to bathe (otherwise she was a lovely person). She was wrong. After enduring the stink cloud for a bit, I told her as politely as possible, and she was really embarrassed about it. She did start taking care of herself after that. I think maybe some people stop being able to smell themselves, but in the summer in Georgia not bathing is really not an option.
I have to guess here. We had a co-worker once, long ago, who announced his entrance by smell. I mean, you knew who was coming through the door. One day, a lot of the guys (we were all guys there) were ganging up on him, picking on him about taking a bath once in awhile. He insisted that he took showers regularly. Me, I didn’t want to join the picking on him. I was picked on, myself, as a kid, and I didn’t want to be one of the bullies. (More about how I learned to enjoy being a bully in some future conversation.) But, let’s face it, this guy was damned RANK! So I told him that just stepping into a shower for a minute or two will take most of it off you, soap isn’t even needed.)
Amazing the memory I have about even the most picayune moments, but hey, that’s life. Anyway, what with your question and my remembering that incident, I have to wonder, could it be some kind of unconscious rebellion? Maybe his early hygienic habits were over-emphasized about the “proper” way to bathe, enough to create a rebellious habit as a form of self-determination. Hygiene is a habit and if there’s an internal rebellion to forming that habit, then… well, the habit doesn’t get formed, I’d guess.
Gad, I had to go two weeks without a shower one time, and that was nasty. I can’t even imagine a month, or six months. In fact, I really have to wonder about those in the old days that only took baths once a week. (And then, there’s the story about the legendary Fu bird in India.)
A couple of years ago, I’d had a major surgical procedure that was not healing properly; I was expecting to not be able to shower/bathe for the couple of weeks post-op (dreading it, but expecting it), but I also had to go through about eight weeks of extensive wound care during which I was not allowed to get into a bathtub or the shower; AAACCCKKK! I did go to the hair place down the street about once a week and pay them to wash my hair, and did the best I could with soap and wash cloths just standing in front of the sink, but let’s face it, a sponge bath just isn’t the same as a proper shower or bath!
I cannot tell you how scuzzy and awful I felt until I could get in the shower again!
I worked in a Boston engineering office once where a draftsman who was allergic to tap water, or perhaps to some chemicals in it, couldn’t bathe or shower. He had to “wash” with ‘oils’. It was quite noticeable downwind.
It is funny, I just joined this group and this was the first forum that caught my eye. My brother in law, wifes bro, NEVER bathes or showers. He is an average looking joe but very depressed. He is 23, never kissed a girl, so is obviously a virgin and is a ferocious masterbater. Caught him a zillion times, once on my favorite chair. Anyways, I think a previous poster has hit the nail on the head, non bathers, and people with severe depression have a connection. I tell him ALL the time!! He is soooo bad that you can see sweaty dirt lines around his neck, it is, to say the least, VERY DISTURBING!!!
It kills me that bathing didn’t even used to be a regular thing. Every time I watch a TV show or movie set in the olden-times, all romanticism is just vanquished by the knowledge that the noble woman or the handsome knight probably smelled terrible.
As for the OP, moldy feet is the grossest thing I’ve ever heard.
I agree that not bathing can be a symptom of depression. I really struggled to do basic self-care when I was at my worst. But even then you know that you look like shit - you just don’t care and figure you might as well look how you feel.
Your friend doesn’t sound really all that depressed, though. Just gross.
You know some people can bathe regularly and still have horrible body odor. It could be because of bad diet (some diets, especially if heavy in fatty foods) can in some people cause strong body odor that regular bathing and deodorant won’t entirely mask. Some people just have issues that regardless of diet they’re going to stink. If you’re ever in a pharmacy you may notice there are usually some OTC deodorants that cost like $10.00 or more for a small container (where regularly they cost $3.00-4.00 around here), these are “prescription strength” and are marketed for people with this problem. My understanding is dermatologists can even prescribe actual prescription deodorant for people with more serious problems along this line.
So hey, the co-worker you were laughing at very well could have been bathing every day.
I had an uncle (my mother’s brother) who bathed daily but refused to use deodorant. I don’t really know why he refused, but he always smelled like B.O. in spite of his daily baths. I know there are people who don’t use deodorant and it’s not heinous, but in his case, it definitely was. One time, when he was hospitalized on an emergency basis, we had to assemble a hospital bag for him. My mother decided to throw a stick of deodorant in there, and I took it to him in the hospital. He went through everything with me standing there, and when he got to the deodorant, he said “Huh. Someone must have accidentally packed this” and tossed it aside! Oh well, we tried!
Fortunately, my husband and I have the kind of relationship where if one of us is, uh, malodorous, we think nothing of saying (not maliciously) “Hey, babe, you need to shower before you come to bed!”
It’s really kind of sad how powerfully body odor pings on the disgust-o-meter because I do understand that some people can’t help it. As an kid I had excessive perspiration problems, but I was lucky enough that my parents figured it out and we went to a doctor and I started using one of those prescription-strength OTC brands. I resented the hell out of them at the time, but it worked like a charm and I still use it when necessary. I could see someone growing up in an environment where parents weren’t really paying attention or chose not to say anything just getting used to never bathing or wearing deodorant. I imagine a daily routine of neglecting personal hygiene would be really hard to break.
I don’t know if it’s nastier than moldy feet, but I recall working at a Subway - even without the frying grease, I still stank at the end of each shift. Working over a fryer, I can’t even imagine what a non-bather would smell like.