A Request for Courtesy
As a libertarian, I support the right of individuals to use or consume whatever substances they want, provided they do not harm others. However, I ask that a little consideration for others be included in your choices.
Perfumes and Scented Products
While I have written before on the topic of people who lack proper hygeine, some people go too far in the other direction and try to avoid the risk of any offensive human odors by using scented products with wild abandon and applying perfumes like they're insect repellent.
This is very bad for the health of people like me with chemical sensitivities. Lung problems, stomach aches, headaches, and worse can quickly develop. If you are a literal cloud of poison for people, you are an awful person regardless of your intentions.
The worst offenders here are largely teenage girls who have discovered cheap perfumes, teenage boys who think Axe Body Spray is cool, and elderly women who have apparently lost all sense of smell. I read somewhere that perfumes and colognes should be discovered rather than announce themselves, and too many people have scented products that announce themselves with all the subtlety of the Kool-Aid Man.
Tobacco
I am sure you have all heard this before, but tobacco is not a healthy habit, and while second-hand smoke may have been somewhat overblown as a public health threat by zealots, it ain't safe.
I have seen two kinds of smokers. Some can smoke and not smell like ashtray all day afterward. Most fall into the other category.
Vape
@generikat recently posted about an encounter with vape in the library.
Last night, I joined a Dungeons and Dragons game group for our second night of bi-weekly adventuring and I was seated mext to a player who frequently hit his vaporizer and bellowed plumes into the next room. Fluid dynamics being what they are, his attempt at courtesy only slightly mitigated the effects, and I am still having trouble breathing today.
I was reminded of another occasion when I found myself stipped at a traffic light and witnessed a truly massive plume be expelled from the car ahead of me right before the light change, and just driving through that cloud made me ill.
I know vaping is probably less unhealthy than smoking, but that does not make it safe.
Conclusion
I don't want government goons writing or enforcing more laws, so I ask you to govern yourself. The golden rule is still a good guideline. Do to others what you would have them do to you, and do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. Exercise some empathy and be aware that things you do can adversely affect others.
At one time last evening both T and I got lightheaded, and we were across the table! I'm sorry you are still suffering the effects of twenty vape night.
As a huge proponent of the beautiful simplicity that is the Golden Rule, I have hope, that with some nicely delivered encouragement, most people would do an empathy check regarding their behavior. However, there is always mockery!
I myself get a headache as my boss uses this strong Arabian cologne. Man I just wish people understood what they are doing to others.
Thanks to @jacobtothe for raising this genuine issue. Very cautious of you.....
Your job denies you the chance of putting distance between you and the offender.
Like me, you are old enough to be non PC. Maks a small card saying " a little is better, perfume shouldn't be used like a hammer, or something" and slip it into the books as they check them out.
At the momoment they think they are doing the right thing, a word from the old may help.
I may be non-PC, but my job is very PC and such shenanigans would be frowned upon
You can't tell them verbally either, so you are basically stuffed.
Go Japanese, wear a face mask?
I think I know some people who might have stashes of Soviet surplus gas masks left over from Y2K parnoia and post-9/11 panic buying...
Way to go, the best-dressed Librarian in the whole USA
At least they wouldn't know who they were talking to.
I'm the only one with the XY chromosome working there, and I wear a name tag. I'm pretty sure they could deduce who is in the gas mask. Sorry to burst your bubble like that.
Bugger, shoot them, call it justified homicide, it may work
My solution for those small problems, and problems of greater magnitude is and always has been social homogenization.
If we are all free we can do many things that bother other people, that is why people should be separated by patterns of behavior in different places, and get the people of each place have a moral system that is right and wrong quite similar .
Obviously it looks pretty utopian, but I think the closer to that the better.
Yeah a bit too much "utopian" @vieira hahaha.😊😊😊
I see a place for some measure of self-segregation according to certain cultural norms, e.g. the Amish, but even within a "homogeneous" culture you will find deep individual differences that exceed the obvious ones between cultures. People are individuals first, not members of a culture first.
Of course, it is not looking for equality and uniformity, I am not a communist haha. A certain moral sense is sought that is generalized, that all people have an idea of what is correct and what not quite similar.