[rendall]

> then I stopped showering altogether

After having had over the course of my life a small number of friends who stopped bathing for one reason or another, and my successfully talking them back into the habit, I will tell you what I told them:

With respect, I guarantee you, you stink to the people around you, and you cannot smell it yourself. Find a soap that does not irritate your skin and use it.

Also, launder your clothes. We humans sweat proteins, which when they decay, smell bad. If we sweat into our clothes, the proteins remain there and smell bad. The people around you unconsciously interpret this as illness, and will instinctively avoid you.

My friends who stopped cleaning (and were not ill in some way) almost universally were questioning societal standards after childhoods with controlling parents, as hippies or otherwise back-to-nature transcendentalists. Not sure if that's you, but if so, it checks.

[nevershower]

Thanks for the reality check.