Friends with bad breath

Many friends have reassured me that they would tell me if I had bad breath.  I reassure them that I would do the same for them.

This leads me to one frightening conclusion: People with consistently bad breath have no decent friends.

I used to work with a girl who’s breath smelled like rotten garbage.  I observed her in the wild, and she treated most people like crap.  Thus, being a terrible person led to her lack of friends, which led to an unchecked case of filth breath.

What if it’s a medical condition?  Unlike the friendless bad breather, you would be hyper aware of the noxious fumes pouring from your mouth.  Then, you would either binge on Altoids or wear some sort of “I’m aware of the rotting-flesh stench emanating from my esophagus.  My doctor is concerned, too” type of t-shirt.

Having bad breath can be a frightening experience.  Finding out that you’ve had it for years, yet no one was a good enough friend to tell you about it, would trigger a self-destruction unlike any other.  That’s why you will probably never tell someone about their consistently bad breath.  You might as well be saying “You’re a terrible person.  Complete strangers hate you, simply for the fact that everyone else hates you so much they won’t let you in on the secret of your horrifying breath.”  That wouldn’t be fun to hear.