Why do some people find the smell of gasoline pleasant?
I like the small of gasoline, AND I LOVE the smell of skunk. (I’m glad I’m not alone on the latter, judging from the few mentions of skunk love above.) And I can’t stand the smell of lavender…which is considered a beautiful fragrance and made into sachets, soaps, etc. And although smelling IS a mentally evocative human sense, I don’t believe that my likes/dislikes are reinforced by pleasant associations. Why do I like skunk smell? Cause I just do. …And if anything, the accompanying association of skunk was not a pleasant one: Me as a child in the car on a country road, sniffing out the window, and my parents explaining that someone “must have ran over and killed a skunk.” (–sad!
I remember being quite young and getting a noseful at the gas station and being unable to figure out why, exactly, I liked that smell. No associations—not a car person, didn’t grow up around car people. Just, bam, that smells interesting. I was very much aware of my own confusion at the time, because the smell certainly wasn’t good, but I sure did like it.
another vote for a chemical reaction based on genetics. I almost gag at the smell of gasoline and have to be careful when filling the tank. Bizzarly when I taste mustard in anything It tastes to me like gasoline has been added to the food and again I react badly. Then there is the question of the effect of sniffing gasoline which I know some kids here in the UK get addicted too, a bit like glue-sniffing.
For me, I’m sure it’s a childhood association. My father was a crew chief for a Top Fuel dragster when I was a wee tyke, and some of my first memories are from the drag strip. However, gasoline has smelled horrible since they took out the lead. Good ol’ 100-octane leaded premium was the best smell evar, next to nitromethane.