Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : My co-worker was standing next to me at my desk and I immediately caught wiff of a pretty rusty dankness. After he left, the odour went away. The thing is, one time we were in an elevator together and he had a bad odour then too. Aside from those two moments we haven’t had much close physical interaction, though we are on pleasant speaking terms at work.

I thought about it at home and figured if I smelled bad at work, no one would probably tell me so I would appreciate if someone did to avoid any embarrassment I may receive from further ignorance of my odour. The next day I sent him a private message in our work IM software, saying I noticed a bad smell around him and that it was probably just his nice dress shirt worn more than once or something. He sent me a sole 😢 emoji in response.

After I told my gf and she says I was really rude and basically an asshole for doing so because there could have been plenty of reasonable explanations and it could have really hurt his feelings. She says it was unconstructive criticism. To be fair, two smelly moments isn’t very many so I overstepped professional bounds however I felt sincere in my intention that I was trying to let him know something that he probably wasn’t aware of and could hurt his rep around the office. It was a private message and I haven’t mentioned it to anyone around the office. 

Am I the Asshole? 