[AutumnAwesomeSparkle]

Hello,

I am new to this board and if I am posting in the wrong place, I apologize. I read through the other threads and of course it looks I am the first to ask this.

I have severe anxiety disorders and it is difficult for me to make friends. I got lucky after moving to meet a fellow nerdy mom with a daughter around the same age as mine and a husband who works 3rd shift. And she is a gaming nerd, which is awesome!

She came over yesterday and our daughters had a playdate. We got along great! Except I kept getting a weird smell. It smelled like body odor. I was embarrassed thinking it was something in our couch. Thank God I kept quiet. I realized later it was her. My husband noticed it too, however no way we would say something.

So I looked it up and found out extremely obese people have trouble cleaning themselves sometimes. It is not their fault. My friend looks clean. Her hair is clean, her clothes are clean and so on. My husband said he had a friend who was very obese who had the same problem.

I am posting here because I did not want hate comments. Yes, she is an extremely big woman. She is probably 100+. However, I do consider her a friend. I do not want to let her body odor turn off a friendship and I am sure there are many annoying things about me too!

So my question is this: what do I do at this point? Has anyone dealt with this before? I absolutely do not feel it is my place to say anything to her. I just met her and I know it is hard for her to make friends too. She has anxiety as well. What can I do to help keep the smell at bay? To be honest, I can still smell it in the area she sat even today. And yes I swear i checked around. It did crop up until she came over. It is a funky sour smell, so I am sure it is body odor.

I honestly have zero intention to end the friendship. I am just not sure what to do and I wanted advice without hate or trolls.

[raftcub]

This is a problem of mine. I am 100 kilos as well. :-(
I do use alum powder and it helps with the smell. Sweaty but smell is mostly controlled.

[StarAnise]

I'm not quite sure what the question is?

[hummingbird lady]

I think that if you are thinking you can't hang out with her without stressing about this, you need to very gently talk with her about it. Be kind, talk about a time when someone pointed out something about you that you didn't notice but were grateful to know. Most people don't smell themselves as strongly as other people do and maybe she would be grateful to get some feedback. If it's affecting your friendship it's probably also affecting her other relationships. There might not be anything she can do about it, though, if it's because she can't reach her bum to wipe really well during the day. But maybe showering is a hassle so she doesn't do it often enough, and some gentle feedback could solve the whole thing. Good luck!

[Heidipo]

Hi! I also have a friend with the same situation as your friend. I also did not have the guts to talk to her about it. However, my other friends did. They told her that there are times when they have a body odor too and they did something about it. Our friend (who has a body odor) was not offended at all. In fact, she was grateful that they told her about it. I think the same thing will happen to you too. Don't think about it too much and just talk to her genuinely.

[FrankB]

Unfortunate but common