Yeah, fairly similar.

Dude worked with me and two of my players (not mtg, but ttrpg) at a fast food joint back when we were still in high school, and right after.

Guy was dumb as a brick, but just genuinely nice. Always willing to help people out with whatever.

But he was couch surfing. And he'd never had good hygiene (we find out later) because his family were almost homeless, and rarely had fancy things like running water.

His teeth were literally green.

He starts playing d&d and my home brew system with us. Again, dumb as a brick, but he's totally into it, does voices, physically acts things out, just straight baller of a player, the kind that keeps a table on a good vibe.

But Jesus fucking Christ, the smell of the guy. And his skin was horrible on top of that.

Me and one of my friends took him aside after work and talked to him about it. Me being me, I was pretty blunt. Said something like, dude, we love playing with you, you're a great guy, but I've smelled rotten skunk that smelled better; what's the deal?

He was pretty ashamed, but me and my homie reassured him that we liked him anyway, and wanted to help.

Well, dude didn't really have a place, and had to limit himself to one bag. So we talked to my dad, and another friend's dad. Got permission for the guy to shower at our places here and there.

I was a nurse's assistant, got my certification during this time, and ended up having to teach the guy how to take care of himself. It was a bit weird, but as he started getting cleaner, feeling more confident, he'd open up about things. Dude didn't know how to wash his dick properly. So my freshly 18 year old self had to instruct this mid twenties dude in how to keep his junk clean lol. Nobody else involved really knew how to teach someone stuff they took for granted, but I'd had to kinda relearn all the hygiene stuff from a new perspective, so it was easy.

Anyway, a few months into this, and he's looking better, smelling a lot better, and lands an assistant manager position because of it. I mean, it's fast food, so it's a shit job, but it was a big step up for him. And it came with insurance (amazingly), so he started getting his teeth fixed up a little at a time.

About a year and a half passes, and he meets this girl at a party we were throwing. Not exactly a friend, but known to us. She sees him and gets all flustered, red faced and stuttering. Turns out, he cleans up pretty good. He's smiling a lot more because he's not hiding his teeth. He's got better clothes, his own place, he's a new guy from the outside, but still this awesome dude inside.

About a year later, they're married. Me and the ttrpg group are all standing with him, the second of any of us to get married, and the first not to elope lol.

A little over a year after that, he's got a kid new born, and is a regional manager. Still dumb as a brick, but because he's able to follow instructions and the company had good ones, it's something he can do well. Plus, everybody that worked under him loved the guy because he was still just righteous.

They ended up moving to Colorado for her job, and he was stay at home dad for a while. We kinda lost touch except for the occasional email or call, but they were happy and doing fine the last time we caught up.

There's no real moral to all of that, but it was similar enough to the greentext I figured it might be of minor interest.

I'll say this much; it never hurts to try reaching out to someone.

People can't get better without feedback. It's hard to do as a stranger, so those without loved ones can go on in life oblivious to the obvious mistakes they make.

When I was serving in the US military, we were given extremely strict official regulations to live by, which included dress and appearance. There were rules for how long your hair could be, how to properly button/zip/Velcro your uniforms, no wearing of dirty or torn clothing items, must be clean shaven at all times, always be clean and presentable, etc. All aspects of our lives were maintained by an extremely strict protocol.

One year, we got this brand-new young lady in our unit. It was her very first assignment in the military. At first glance, she was kinda cute. Had kind of the shy Violet from The Incredibles vibe going for her. But when she got close to you, you suddenly realized you could smell her. She reeked of feces and B.O., her breath was like death, and her hair was super greasy and clumped into thick strands. Her pale skin had a greasy sheen to it as well. Also, her hair was out of regulations. She wore it hanging straight down, no bobby pins, no buns or ponytails or braids. It was heavily brushing her shoulders; way too long for women's hair. Hair that long (at the time) was required to be up in a tight bun while in uniform. Also, her uniform hat had very visible grease stains along the edges.

She was pulled aside by our commander and chewed out for not adhering to military regulations, then told to go home, shower, fix her hair (or get a haircut; her choice), and put on a fresh, clean uniform. She left crying.

Soon after, our commander (a Major) got a call from a Colonel at another base. The Colonel proceeded to chew out our commander for "targeting, harassing, and destroying the reputation" of his baby sister. Oops. A Colonel outranks a Major, so our commander couldn't do anything but take the ass-chewing.

From that moment on, that young girl proceeded to be gross and filthy 24/7, and anyone who complained got an earful from her big brother. No one could reason with him; he absolutely refused to believe his darling baby sister would be such a pigsty. And he was stationed in a completely different country from us, so it's not like we could drag him over to give his sister a welfare check. We were forced to leave her alone and suffer from her horrid stench. She was given a job in the back corner of the office, away from other coworkers, and FAR away from the customer front desk.

That was about 9 years ago, and I only worked with her for just under a year before I was reassigned. I wonder where she is now? I'm curious if she was ever forced to acknowledge her awful hygiene habits and change. Or perhaps she couldn't tolerate the "abuse" of bosses and coworkers trying to correct her and decided to leave the military.

Like I said, she was pretty cute, if you could look past all the grime. There was a theory floating around that maybe she had been abused and/or raped in the past, and so she decided to protect herself by making herself as filthy and unappealing as possible. If that's true, it worked. Everyone gave her a wide berth.

The power of feedback, and I’m saying that without any sarcasm/irony. Most people never get genuine, honest feedback in their entire lives. The people closest to them shelter them and beat around the bush not to hurt their feelings (or the opposite, they intentionally hurt if they are assholes).

But strangers don’t care about your feelings, they can be honest.

Of course they could have been nicer in the story, guy propably had a shitty night and felt bad, but will thank them years later for this moment that transformed his entire life and gave him a different future.

Back when I was younger in college there was a guy who was very socially awkward and unfortunately had a stink that could be smelt from the opposite end of a long corridor. He used to hang out with another kid who had learning difficulties. One day one of the least nice people in my class said to smelly guy "Jesus Christ, why don't you go take a shower, you stink!" and this caused smelly guy to go bright red in the face and storm off.

Cut to after class and a bunch of us go to the communal area of the college and hang out. Smelly guy walks into the area and walks up to his friend all flustered. His friend asks "Are you alright?" And smelly guy says "Someone told me I need a shower because I smell", friend says very timidly "it might be a good idea." Smelly guy goes bright red and storms off again.

He comes back after about 10 minutes and walks up to his friend and pulls out two cans of deodorant and shouts "YOU THINK I SMELL?!" And proceeds to spray the deodorant over himself in a rage...but then turns on his friend and sprays him like crazy. Everyone around is in shock and smelly guy throws the cans on the floor and storms out of the building. We can all see him out the window and he walks up to a bin and kick it, it doesn't move (secured to the ground) and he falls over, gets up and runs off. We didn't see him for the rest of the week.

The following week he turns up and his hair has been cut, he has new clothes and his aura of stink is gone. People just casually say hi and over the remaining time we were at college people started to talk to him more and were more polite towards him. He'd still hang out with his friend so I suspect that outburst was water under the bridge.

I hope ex-smelly guy is alright in life. That must have been quite the turning point for him.

Tbh, this is me, and I totally get it; I have undersized sinuses so my sense of smell is sometimes less than it should be, and I prefer to not shower because I always feel like I'm freezing when I get out until I dry off. That said, I'm not trying to be disgusting, and actually appreciate if someone politely reminds me to shower because I'm too absentminded to remember to at least shower once a week and before going somewhere with a lot of people. I absolutely will get myself cleaned up if you ask nicely, I don't appreciate cigarette smoke myself partly because it stinks (I don't smoke and neither do any of my family, but unfortunately it's pretty common here for complete strangers to do so in front of doorways to stores) so I can understand if something about me smells gross and you need me to wash.

Interestingly, there's evidence that showering every day is actually too much and it should be twice/thrice a week (essentially every two days) instead. If I could meet that standard on my own, I would, and I'm thankful to be able to explain myself here even if no relevant person will ever see it.

Thanks to OP for this green text. Sometimes people do need it bluntly, I became a better person overall in 2015 because someone who did care about me pointed out some things I'd done that were hurting the people around me in subtle ways.

Some people legitimately do just need that kick in the ass to discover they're not doing something right. Maybe they didn't have great parents (or they weren't present at all) and never learned those habits. Then society is way too big on politeness and avoiding problems such that nobody ever takes them aside and tells them they need to be cleaning better.

This may legit be the first time he's ever been told he smells bad and needs to clean up.

We had a young guy start working at our store when I was maybe 19, and he was gross! He had, apparently, quite a bad family life. His greasy long hair always hung over his face, and you could tell which aisle he was in from the next aisle over just by the smell.

Once, the store manager was so disgusted that she grabbed a bottle of febreeze off of the shelf and had him spray the whole thing on himself. He broke out in a rash all over and had to go home. She was embarrassed but didn't get in any trouble and the rest of the employees went from laughing to mad at her on his behalf.

At one of the places I worked as a manager I oversaw a staff of in-house techs that made desk-side calls when things needed done. After many complaints, I had to have a talk with one of my staff because he smelled and that I couldn't have him come back to the office until he cleaned up. After that I had weekly check ins with him until the new hygiene regimen became routine.

That was one of the hardest conversations I have ever had and the look on his face killed me.