Desperately Reeking Susan

A friend wants to break up with a woman he's started seeing because he can't stand her smell (her natural scent; it's not a hygiene issue). Friends say he's being too nitpicky, and this is not a reason to break up. P.S. He isn't someone who normally goes around being put off by people's smell.

--Sympathetic

It's hard enough to apply latex before sex without breaking the mood. Try telling your girlfriend that you just have to hose her down with Febreze. This friend of yours could love this woman's heart, mind, and spirit, but that isn't going to cut it if, for him, "a rose by any other name" is pretty much "goat vomit." His friends shouldn't blame him. Chances are, his genes make him do it. Research by biologist Claus Wedekind and others suggests we evolved to prefer the smell of a partner whose immune system is quite different from ours, probably so we'll produce children with a broader set of defenses from parasites and diseases. Your friend needs to end it before this woman gets attached and, especially, before he loses it and blurts out, "What the hell's that perfume you're always wearing, Eau Did Your Septic Tank Back Up Again"?