Is it the schnoz? For every action I perform, I always have a novel-length monologue about it in my head. I question the hell out of anything, from turning left at a one-way stop to putting my arm around my boyfriend’s waist. It’s always been a big obstacle in my love life. I’m incapable of flirting without mentally debating all the ways my attempts at seduction might be interpreted: as loving, or silly, or stupid, or ironic, or whorish, or rude. Josh doesn’t understand why I can’t let go, why I’m never swept away. Why can’t I just kiss him? Why have I never been able to just kiss anybody? Is it impossible for me to appreciate hormones? Is it because my primal self – my lizard brain, my animal nature – has gone awry?
For contrast, Wudel offers her roommate Cecilia, “perhaps the only truly lusty woman I’ve ever met:”
She’s from Nicaragua. She has a profound love for each of her senses. Each night, she performs her dinner ritual. She sits at our little table, pours a glass of wine, lights a scented candle (cinnamon or honey rum), and savors a soup or burrito she’s made entirely from scratch. Catching her in full sniff – eyes closed, breathing in the lushness of the air – is like catching her mid-orgasm.
There might be a, um, whiff of ethnic stereotype here, but more than that, Wudel may be overstating the contrast between herself and Cecilia. Sure, for those of us who can smell, the scent of a certain deodorant can still bring back all the pain of an unrequited high-school crush, or the joy of a new fling, but just because you can’t enjoy scented candles doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy life. Wudel does realize there’s more to love than scent:
I do use my senses when it comes to passion: I like to listen to my boyfriend play the guitar, or watch him dance. Smell isn’t everything: I love his face, I get lost in his eyes, I revel in the crush of his arms against me. I adore his mind.
But her essay keeps coming back to self-criticism, to the idea that she’s bad at love and sex because she’s not “primal” enough. Thing is, self-criticism is probably a lot more damaging than any other deficiency Wudel may have. She may be less unusual than she thinks — despite her enjoyment of good food and wine, sensual Cecilia probably has some insecurities too. Most women do — and despite their reputation as animalistic sex-and-steak consumers, I’ve yet to meet a man without a hangup either. And actual animals get stressed out too, so the whole “animal nature” thing may be something of a red herring. Or, like, baboon.
I don’t mean to devalue Wudel’s quest to enjoy life without over-analyzing. As a neurotic person myself, I too have struggled to turn my brain off from time to time. But I do know that most people who seem relaxed actually aren’t (evidence: the word most often used to describe me by new acquaintances is “calm”), and that probably the only real way to be bad at sex or flirting is to think you are. It was interesting to learn about how Wudel’s anosmia affects not only her experience of food and sex, but the way she thinks about herself and her life — still, when she wrote, “I want to ask if these things I think I feel could ever be called feelings,” I wanted to tell her that sometimes the first step is to stop asking.
True Stories: Scents And Sensibility [Nerve.com]
