We’ve all heard of it, and many of us have fallen victim to it: the dreaded ick. But what is the psychology behind this mysterious gut feeling that holds so much power over us, and is there any coming back from it?
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Joe Bailey was sitting in his car with his girlfriend at the time, enjoying the sound of the waves beating against the shore, and the fresh, subtly salty smell of the beach on a warm summer’s day.
Joe Bailey, 23, an engineering student from Barry, explains: “We needed to go for a chat because we both weren’t really happy. We started talking about what was happening, then I found out that for the past month, she had been writing a list of things that I had done that she didn’t agree with. I mean she literally pulled out a list of like ten things on a piece of paper out of her pocket.”
Joe stared in dismay, as his then-girlfriend triumphantly clutched onto a long, crumpled list of all of his supposed wrongdoings. The soothing beat of the ocean became the sound of waves crashing violently onto the rocks, and the salty breeze had suddenly become a suffocating, pungent scent.
And there it was:
The ick.
On his now ex-girlfriend, Joe continues: “Major ick on that one. If you’ve got a problem with something I’ve done, just tell me there and then. I’ll never forget it.
But what exactly is the ick?
The term ‘the ick’ was first uttered by the titular character of the 1990s hit comedy, Ally McBeal, but it describes a phenomenon that had existed long before then.
It’s that undeniable gut feeling you get when a romantic interest does or says something that instantly repulses you and puts you off them.
Sometimes, an ick can be an understandable sign of incompatibility.
Jessica Tay was enjoying her first date with a seemingly charming man she met off of the dating app, Hinge, until he uttered the sentence: “Chinese girls are my type.”
The 22-year-old communications student from Singapore explains: “I couldn’t look at him the same anymore. It was the feeling that I was being fetishised for my race, instead of being seen for who I am as a person, that gave me the ick.”
Matthew Lloyd, a 21-year-old engineering student from Bridgend, says: “An ick for me is when a girl consistently expects for everything to be paid for. It obviously makes me think they don’t have any manners or courtesy.”
Other times, icks can be completely trivial yet immediate dealbreakers.
Matthew adds: “When I see girls walking around town barefoot after a night of clubbing, that’s also a massive ick. The floor’s dirty!”
Why do we get the ick?
Dating coach, Sebastian Jozwik, runs the London-based company Leading Man Attraction. With his years of experience in guiding men through the dating world, he’s no stranger to this mysterious ick taking over modern romance.
He suggests that icks aren’t quite as irrational as we think they are, and are usually just products of your upbringing.
He says: “I think it depends, there’s the element of how you were raised and what your belief systems become as you grow up. A lot of the time, you will see your family and your parents, and how they are together, and that will be your kind of idea of what a good relationship should look like.
“Sometimes there are relationships where the father is the provider, for example, so a woman will look for a similar partner in the future. It depends on who your role models are in life as you’re growing up.”
However, in a world dominated by social and popular media, icks can also come from what we absorb from the content we consume.
Jozwik continues: “A lot of how we think about dating, in general, is influenced by the things we watch – TV shows, movies, influencers… A lot of these things can influence how we perceive our relationships and how we perceive our partners.
“Nowadays, people kind of find icks where there are no icks. It can create certain situations where you know it shouldn’t be as big of a deal as it is, and icks can rise from nothing.”
This is especially true with the rising popularity of the word ‘ick’ on social media, and trending videos where content creators describe their oftentimes completely trivial icks.
In a TikTok with over 300,000 likes by HopelessRomanticSociety, an interviewee confesses: “I just don’t like to see happiness sometimes. I saw a man smiling once… He was popping a balloon and was playing with it before he popped it, and I looked over at him like ‘hmmm’. All the sexual tension leaving the room.”
So in a day and age where even smiling can be icky, it begs the question: is there any hope for modern romance?
Is there any coming back from the ick?
For some, icks are instant dealbreakers.
On his ex-girlfriend’s handwritten list of sins, Joe proclaims: “You can never get over it once you get the ick.”
However, others are more willing to forgive and forget.
Jessica explains: “With the guy that said Chinese girls were his type, I don’t think I could get over that ick, since it’s literal fetishisation. But if it’s something small like, he wears fuzzy slippers, then it’s about seeing the person for more than their icks.”
Matthew adds: “I do believe you can get over the ick – it all depends on how much you like the person and how serious the ick is.”
Hozwik agrees that icks aren’t the end-all be-all, and may actually help foster healthier relationships.
He explains: “It really does depend on how you move forward because if you don’t communicate with your partner about it, or whoever it may be, then you’re pretty much keeping everything inside and the ick will grow and grow. The other person may not even know about it, and the relationship will most likely fade away.
“It’s best to keep an open communication, even if you think that you might offend your partner, it’s better to have a conversation with them about something that you’re not feeling or that’s not quite right. And then you can progress together going forward and actually grow even stronger.”
Written by – Athenea Lim