The Ick: social craze or gut instinct
Rene Ranisch - UnSplash
We’ve all been there, the date is going well, you’re walking between bars or to a restaurant and you stop to tie your shoelace. Pretty innocent right? Well no, after I did this I was enlightened to a new chapter in the tragic tale of my dating life: the ick. In the modern world of hyper-sensationalised dating, new buzzwords and trends come and go but nothing has split opinion quite like the ick.
The ick is a gut reaction of disgust to seemingly innocent behaviour that someone exhibits. An ick could be the way they laugh, chew their food or wear their shirt tucked in. Being repulsed by someone you were previously attracted to is a strange concept – but it’s the word of the day for Gen Z.
Maybe, like in politics, social media has polarised the way we view potential partners – they’re either perfect or even the littlest thing they do infuriates you. A friend of mine once told me that her boyfriend trying to retrieve a ping pong ball killed her desire for the person she had been with for years. How on earth did the laws of attraction create such a horror story?
I needed to speak to an expert who could make sense of it all. After 20 years of marriage, will you suddenly wake up one day to find your partner unattractive? And what about my own experience of falling victim to the ick, Is there a danger that constant analysis of our tiniest behaviours will make people robotic and self-conscious of how they act – killing the individual quirks of human mannerisms that make us fall in love – creating a world of conformity.
Dating coach, Hayley Quinn, said: “To other people, the ick might seem like no big deal, but in the eyes of the beholder it’s a dealbreaker.
“In the past, we may have described the ick as being a ‘turn-off’ but in recent years the ick has entered our lexicon and is now often cited as the reason someone will stop exploring a relationship with someone else.”
I wanted to ask Haley if modern dating has been contorted by the superficial nature of how love is portrayed, with instant gratification and immediate disaster expected, rather than the gradual building of a relationship.
The relationship expert said: “Modern dating culture is often described as a bad mix of too much choice, meaning people no longer want to see things through.
“Fueled by high stakes dating shows like Love Island, gone are the days of ‘give it a chance’ and now people stick or twist on their love lives at a faster pace.
“We should all know by now that commitment will involve compromise: There is no perfect person for us, and each relationship requires work.”
However, maybe the confusion and melancholy I felt during my experience of being a victim of the ick is just natural – have humans not had to deal with rejection since time began?
When prompted on this Haley said: “The ick isn’t an entirely bad thing (provided you don’t feel it on every date you go on!) the ick can really be our gut instincts telling us that something doesn’t click in our attraction to someone.”
“In fact It may in fact be good for a person’s dating confidence to be okay to walk away from some dating opportunities that aren’t right for them, sending a signal to themselves that there are other people out there for them.
Like most things in life it’s about a balance between realistic expectations, and having high enough standards about who we spend our time with.”
The ick is here to stay and like everything in todays world, the ick is used in a context of extremes and without nuance. However, turn-offs have always existed and the ick could just be Gen Z’s way of processing incompatibility in a dating environment that requires instead success.
