I have the same thing. Maybe not quite that powerful, but as a kid I used to root out ant hills to shove sticks in and be a general terror. I thought it was normal until I started dating a girl and we went on a picnic and pointed them out saying we shouldn't eat there. If I smash one it smells like someone opened a can of gas in the room.
When I was 14, but I asked if he had a sister cause I'm into girls with shaved heads, and he just waved his hand and gave me ADHD and then walked away.
There was a brief moment, while I was going through SERE training, in the Navy; it was before we were "captured" but long enough that I hadn't eaten in a while. We were in the low mountains of SoCal, dry and hot. Whenever we would stop movement for a moment and take a seat, I could smell when an ant was on me.
I didn't recognize what the smell was at first until I saw an ant, after smelling it. I hooked him on my finger and brought him close to my nose and it was clear, he was the source.
I couldn't describe it very well though, not a common smell to me. Never experienced it since.
Maybe it was the combination of no food or bathing, and heightened stress. My SiL also went through SERE, says she has no idea what I was talking about, and just makes fun of me about it. But she's also the type of person who would lie about it, just to fuck with me.
It's a genetic quirk, entirely possible they don't have it and you do. There's definitely a thing with real hunger and increased senses too though. I experienced the same thing in Iraq when we out ran our supply lines and went on severe rationing.
You went through SERE training? Damn soldier, you're harder than woodpecker lips! What was your MOS that required that training? I know someone who went through it and he said they locked him in a box that was too small to move in, and then played a recording of someone counting to 10 very slowly over and over again for hours. Did they do that to you?
I was a helicopter aircrewman. They sent all aircrew through.
I definitely wouldn't consider myself "harder than a woodpecker by any stretch", and yes, I got the box and there were several songs they would loop that were designed to prevent you from relaxing. The "Boots" song is one I probably won't forget
The box actually didn't bother me. But there were a lot of things that really messed with head. They were also still water boarding back then.
We still had SEALs going through the same school (they have their own now), and we had one that kept escaping. You couldn't really escape though, because this was all training, so you if you did escape, you were supposed to stop and announce it, and let the guards come get you. And then you get punished. So it was stupid to escape. Except this fucking guy didn't give a shit. He just kept escaping. The stripped him, hosed him down, slapped the shit out of him, he didn't care. In the debrief, they said they almost failed him because they thought he wasn't taking it seriously. I thought they weren't taking it seriously if it was that easy to escape
That wasn't something I ever want go through again.
Yes because it makes you worse at finding and disposing of those damn stink bugs, whose stink smells vaguely like how soapy cilantro tastes because of aldehydes.
I have it. My mom used to crush ants she saw in the kitchen before she realized that the stink I was complaining about was the stench of compressed ant corpses. Don't get me started on these stinky fucks:
Yeah. It sounds more like he could be Ant-Man and is able to pick up on the trails. If he can communicate with them by twreking his butt into the ground, I'm convinced.
I wouldn't say I can smell if there's a single ant in the other room, but I can absolutely smell if there are ants. And I hate if I have to sweep them out do anything because they really pop off in distress. Its crazy how such a tiny thing can smell so bad.
The odorous black house ant is pretty common in the US. The smell is pretty pronounced if you crush them - grad student I was doing field work under randomly shouted “come smell my finger!” and yeah - it’s very much like blue cheese.
This is exactly what I thought about increasing this! I asked my bf what bug it was because I couldn’t remember for sure. If only I’d kept scrolling before asking, lol.
If her bf is an anteater, good for her, I'd say. 😏
On a more serious note, I think I have the opposite, cause I've never felt the apparently dreadful smell that stinkbugs emit when threatened or squished.
Oh I have that with mosquitoes, my parents even wake up when they sting, but I feel nothing, I always have some big ones filled with blood in the morning because they feast on me all night long.