First of all, let’s separate the issues.
If you have a tent with 100 people, all spaced equally apart and standing still, and you are in a corner of the tent and there is no air current,
Then eventually everyone will be affected as your pherocloud expands and the pheromones in the air circulate through the volume of space in the tent by convection. Those closest will be affected first.
IF THEY ARE AFFECTED at all. Some people appear to have no response to some pheromones, sometimes. (Just a disclaimer to keep this honest, I won’t mention it again.)
Now, suppose that while the 100 people in the tent stand still that you walk around them and through them, in, out, back, forth, here, there. You are creating a “pherotrail” behind you. Slower walking lays down a “bigger” trail than fast walking (can you see why?)
The distribution of pheros in the room will happen faster than if you sit or stand still.
Now, let’s also look at what we mean by “affected”.
Pheromones “work” because they produce a chemical change / response in the body when the person comes into contact with the pheromone molecules in sufficient quantity.
In the case where you are still, and the 100 people are still, most of them will be affected but will not identify you with the effect. If you just put a cotton pad sprayed with pheromones on a diffuser instead of yourself, the 100 people not moving around would be affected. And they would, if the cotton pad is well concealed, have no clue why.
Now take the case where you move about, slowly walking from one place to another, leaving a “thicker” trail. Humans actually have excellent capability to pick up “scent intensity” and that goes for pheromones as well. They will be able to detect a “gradient” of pheromone concentration … the pheros get stronger they closer they are to you.
Now … remember that people will be affected whether or not you are there if the PHEROS are there. But perhaps more important is that they associated the phero AFFECT with YOU.
That’s where acting in a way that is consistent with your pherosignature comes into prominence. It provides other people with the cognitive data to link you and the phero affect together.
And, as steveo points out, as you approach someone, you are giving them powerful “gradient” data (“the pheros are getting stronger” says the body of the person you approach, or perhaps “I feel even more comfortable/sexy/talkative/like celebrating now that this person is close”) … so when you APPROACH and ACT CONSISTENT with your pherosig, you are leveraging the maximum PERSONAL gain from your pheros.
It’s one thing to have people affected (the molecules interact and produce a chemical response) and another entirely to have them /a/ enjoy the response and /b/ connect the enjoyment to YOU in a conscious way.
Chemical reactions happen pretty fast, close to instantaneous. Getting someone to CONSCIOUSLY associate the chemical change (and good feeling they are feeling) may take a minute or two longer. Maybe even five or perhaps, sometimes, in unusual circumstances, fifteen minutes. (But the more consistent you are behaving with your pherosig, the more data you are giving them to help them come to that conscious recognition. So being CONSISTENT with your pherosig speeds that conscious recognition/association up a lot.)
Moths can detect faint pheromones at a distance of several MILES. Perhaps sometime w e will get scientific models of the distance / concentrations that are necessary to produce responsive behavior in humans, with or without conscious recognition.
Does that help, or make things muddier?