Is Taking a Shower Once a Day Too Much To Ask?

I lounged in the changing room waiting chair, trying to drown out all the noise. An attendant came forward and waved me back, as another person left the room holding several pairs of clothes.

I stepped into the room and gagged. It was like mustard gas had been released. The scary part? I have a terrible sense of smell. Laura came into the room after me (she often helps me pick out clothes based on fit — though some establishments don’t allow it as they assume we are looking to get a “quicky” in). Right as Laura closed the door behind her, she held her fingers up to her nose, “What is that?!”

“It was the people behind us,” I said with a grimace.

The sulfurous body odor was threatening to peel the paint off the wall. It was on brand with the chaotic Labor Day shopping experience, and not the first case of terrible hygiene that day. I often wonder how people allow it to get this far. These weren’t the smells of someone who hadn’t showered that morning, or who’d just been hot and sweaty. This was like something that was festering in a lab.

But even beyond good hygiene, there are so many well intended changes people could make, some subtle, others not, that would make life better for all of us. We need it more than ever: Statistically, people are getting ruder and more obnoxious. What can we all do to improve the trajectory?

The problem with digital brevity

Around 2004, a female friend was coming to town. She sent me a big email with ideas of things we could do. I sent a reply.

The next day, I picked her up and within a minute of getting in my car, she joked, “You and your two word response.” My email reply was, “Sounds good.” I didn’t think anything of it. I was just being a club-headed 20-year-old. She was hoping for some feedback on her proposals and she took it negatively.

This simple interaction highlights how tension is proven to increase via online communication (despite people mostly wanting to have sincere dialogue). Where there is any ambiguity, our negativity bias steers our psyche into the red. For example, unless you know a person very well, replying with “k” is not the best way to send good vibes.

In business communication class, we learned to always make digital messages slightly more positive than they actually are, just to even things out.

As someone who spends his career writing for internet audiences, and having lively comment sections, I’ve seen so many threads spiral out over miscommunications. The online disinhibition effect (keyboard warrioring) rears its head with ease.

The funniest thing? When I’ve gone to writer meetups, the nastiest, rudest people you see on platforms, are often the nicest and most non-confrontational people in real life. They are total paper dragons.

To the point: there’s nothing tough or useful about hurling insults at people online. Talk to them the way you would face to face, like an adult, and with respect.

I have a general rule that I don’t argue with strangers in any digital format: text, social media, or otherwise. Important conversations can happen over the phone, but preferably in person.

Some little things you can avoid

My American friend was in Russia and looking to buy a dozen flowers for his new girlfriend he’d met online (which is a longer story for another day). The florist immediately stopped him after learning they were for a love interest.

In Russia, and in parts of Eastern Europe, a dozen flowers is seen as rude. Odd-numbered flowers are for happy occasions and even numbered are for condolences and funerals.

This is a great and forgivable example of cultural insensitivity — and how it can sneak up on you. Yet when I travel, I am routinely surrounded by other American tourists — and far more egregious examples. I once stood deep in a cave in Belize, staring at a sacrificial Mayan skull. There was a rectangular shaped hole on it. I asked the tour guide what happened.

He looked at me, and without saying anything, impersonated someone taking a selfie and doing the “I’m hot face.” Someone had dropped a cell phone on a 1000 year old skull, and as a result, the entire site now had ropes around it and we couldn’t get any closer.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

A more common example

I don’t generally react with hostility to rudeness as most of it isn’t intentional — but it is exhausting. If Laura and I go to a wedding, there is almost always someone who says, “So are you two next?” We rarely know the person. And the question isn’t even terrible — but it’s on the spectrum.

The worst is when people blatantly ask, “So when are you two having kids?” It makes things uncomfortable. Per Laura, “It feels like my body is suddenly the object of conversation with these people.”

Not everyone has the same life plan. Baby inquiries create this weird pressure from absolute strangers. When my new house was being built, I had three different people say, “Making room for a family?”

Even worse, it puts the respondent in an awkward position where they have to dance around actually answering, “We don’t want kids.”

Don’t take fertility, or other people’s intentions, for granted. I’m going to start replying, “We just sacrificed our last one to the Sun God Ra. If the rain doesn’t stop soon, we will do it again.”

The trick to deal with shared spaces

One of the top things roommates and partners fight about is the condition of bathrooms, sinks, and shared areas where hygiene is particularly important. People leave nail trimmings on the counter. They don’t flush the toilet. They leave smelly clothes on the floor and dirty dishes in the sink for days — attracting bugs.

As kids, we were told to leave a room just as nice as we found it. I didn’t always follow this rule as a younger adult. But when I finally evolved, it reduced so many of the problems I had with roommates.

There’s a concept called the “campsite rule” which generally applies to relationships, where we shouldn’t leave our exes worse off than we found them (you shouldn’t have a trail of exes in therapy). This also applies to rooms and public spaces, and ancient Mayan burial sites.

Conclusion

My hope isn’t that we turn civility into a witch hunt where we call out any minor transgression. It’s more an exercise in personal accountability. Just remember that most rude acts are a violation of someone’s sense of safety, comfort, privacy, or self-worth. Sometimes it’s a violation of actual senses.

If everything I’ve outlined is too much to ask, let’s start with this: shower once a day. Ideally, after you workout, not before. Hygiene is a great courtesy to your fellow person and a means of spreading good vibes.

My hope is that we can move towards a more collectivist approach to life, where each of us spreads more kindness and consideration, rather than falling into traps of convenience, and valuing our life over others.