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Being able to smell paint drying with one on, I figured that it would take at least a gas mask to stop airborne droplets which is what you smell when you smell paint.

Most scent molecules are 10-100 times smaller than most viri, including any coronavirus particles. Basing a mask's effectiveness on smell (or not) is useless.

Long story and math short, The filtration level of N95 masks is larger than coronaviri, but still decently effective due to what's basically static electrical attraction. However, this also depends on several factors, including proper sizing, full seal, no fiddling with it, constant (every couple hours, or immediately if wet) replacing of the mask, proper decon/disposal procedures, and so on.

And even if you're 100% perfect on those, an N95 is still only rated to filter out 95% of those particles. So ~5% of the virus is still getting through to you. Given enough time in infected air, you'll get a large enough dose eventually to catch it no matter how good your masking is.

But it’s usually not one molecule you smell, it’s clusters of molecules. If someone has super-sensitive smell. But good point about the cumulative effects of germs in air over time. It’s often just visualized as per exhale, not over say, 1 hour or more.