I’ve been a tomboy from a young age. My friends have always been guys, and I developed a dislike for being around other girls around age 10-11 because the people who bullied me were all girls.
When I was a teenager, I kept hearing that girls and women supposedly have a strong “fishy” smell. I know it’s a meme, but I’d seen and read enough firsthand stories that it stuck with me. I even came across accounts from gay men who said that every woman they knew smelled that way, and that it influenced their attraction to men.
In my case, I seem to be an exception. There’s no fishy smell on myself, just normal skin or sweat when I’m active, or at night when I’m due to shower. But that actually made me even more uncomfortable around groups of girls and women, because I really hate the smell of fish or seafood in general, and if there’s a lot of women in a room, that smell lingers even after they’ve left.
Sometimes I feel embarrassed, because people see me, see that I’m female, and I worry they automatically assume I’ve got a rotting crab factory somewhere.
You can stop worrying, this never happens. Nobody is going around assuming people will probably smell like fish at normal social distances because of their sex. That’s not a thing.
Do people think vaginas in general might smell like fish, like if you go and stick your nose in one? Yeah, that’s a common factoid or comparison. But anybody who is looking at you and thinking of what your crotch might smell like at a distance of 2cm is not someone you want within 100m of you anyway.
If it really bothers you, take up some kind of smelly shampoo or perfume or something. Then you can know you are thought of as “the person who always smells like peaches” or whatever.