Do you Smell that Smell?

Pheromones.

You've got them. I smell them. Now what?

I was recently discussing the affects of sweaty men on girls after reading an oh so enthralling issue of Cosmopolitan that I found on a coffee table at a friends, and it got me wondering exactly how deeply the scent attracts a mate in the human populace.

Like exactly how close to someone do you have to be before the pheromones they're sending out hit that little gland in your nose, the olfactory mucosa? I don't claim to be an expert, but it did set me to thinking about which sense more directly affects sexual attraction.

Let's pose a hypothetical situation.

Summer.

You're in a crowded club... and you're being chatted up by a gorgeous potential.

If all of the sudden you smelled a highly enticing pheromone, would your body become more alert and make you crave finding the owner of that scent? Do you leave Mr./Ms. gorgeous to follow Mr./Ms. Smell good?

Now I'm not encouraging the sniffing out of potential dates literally. I'm just curious as to which one wins out.

So I did a little experiment.

In a controlled environment, I sat down with an awfully pleasant smelling young gentleman at a bar and proceeded to sit there enjoying his company. There were decently attractive men all around me and to tell you the truth, I didn't go run after them. HOWEVER, when I did the experiment in reverse, ie., me chilling with an absolutely gorgeous hunk (this is all eye of the beholder stuff most people would not find this guy attractive) and a man with a delicious smelling after shave walked by, I'm going to be honest I turned around to see who possessed that oh so enticing smell.

My hypothesis is that since smell is tied so close to memory it becomes imperative for your potential mate to be attractive to you... nasally, because you will associate those pleasant smells with their person and therefor associate them with a more positive belief system.

Now I don't know how this translates to the pheromone idea aside from the fact that people wear cologne/perfume/after shave to still entice people towards them with smell. And nowadays you can even find cologne/perfume out there that supposedly enhances your pheromones to be more noticeable for potential mates. My mother always said that when deciding on a new perfume you should spray it on and then walk around for a while as it reacts to your body's chemistry. Maybe this has the same idea.

Maybe you need to walk around with potential mates for a while in order to determine exactly how pleasing their pheromones can be.