Trending
Science, in its never-ending quest to amaze, amuse and amplify weirdness, now claims sniffing a happy person's sweat makes you feel better.
If that's so, why not jump the joy factor by placing party hats on a pack of skunks? (I wouldn't recommend it, no matter how happy the sweaty skunks appear.)
The new study published in Psychological Science asserts that women showed more signs of bliss when they sniffed the sweat of happy men than when they inhaled perspiration of guys in a blase state of mind.
Astounding! Research scientists actually convinced women to poke their sniffers around a bunch of sweaty guys? Oh, and the study results are pretty wild, too.
"Somebody who is happy will infuse others in their vicinity with happiness," study author Gun Semin, a professor at Utrecht University, told Psychological Science.
"Being exposed to sweat produced under happiness induces a simulacrum of happiness in receivers, and induces a contagion of the emotional state."
Right.
Never has a woman told me my stink makes her happy. Nor has anyone been particularly pleased by any other body odors I emanate, for that matter.
I conducted a fair share of my personal field research in a college men's dorm. We guys wrestled, yelled, pranked and generally produced tons of sweat in all manner of happy, hilarious hijinks.
The evidence of our charm wafted like a sledgehammer from pretty much every square inch of the place -- doubly so near the laundry piles.
It affected our dates, all right, but not in the direction the new research suggests.
"It smells like a locker room," they'd shriek through pinched noses.
"Thank you," we beamed.
Turns out it wasn't a compliment.
Years of refinement later, I found myself packed onto an airplane in a subcontinent country where men shun deodorant. They were all smiles, pleasantness and sweat. My eyes watered, my nose burned, and I wasn't inspired into a single whiff of happiness.
Maybe I worried them into the wrong kind of sweat. After all, they were crammed onto a plane with a foreigner scented like a sweet seaside. They were happy to see me disembark, which I did as quickly as possible.
Forget what the nose knows. Invest research on the cheering power of beards. My whiskers provoke smiles, if not outright guffaws.
This is partly because since my beard faded to white, I resemble Santa Claus. Also, since my beard turned into a snow-white palette, my lunch leftovers show up more clearly.
"Saving that for later?" a happy person will guffaw upon spotting spills tangled in the hairs of my chinny-chin-chin.
Hey, you never know when an emergency will arise. Plus, storing provisions in my beard saves space in my pocket for a backup deodorant stick. Because I don't want to my armpit to become the next research subject for science.
— Give Cole at sniff at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook. Find his latest novel, “Bash and the Chocolate Milk Cows” (B&H Kids), in bookstores.