What Is “The Ick”, And Why Do We Feel It?

But what is the ick? And why do we get it? Is it helpful – and if not, is there any getting over it?

What is “the ick”?

We’ve all heard from our parents, friends, and various life coaches that we should be on the lookout for “red flags” – dealbreaker behaviors from partners that signal you should cut a relationship off sooner rather than later. But sometimes, it doesn’t take a whole crimson banner to turn you off a person. Sometimes, it can be as simple as… the way they chew their food. Their favorite candy. The speed at which they return your texts.

What you’re feeling is “the ick”. Coined at least as far back as 1997 in classic Single Female Lawyer show Ally McBeal, the term is currently seeing a surge in use and popularity thanks to shows like Love Island and Nobody Wants This. But what does it actually mean?

“In layman’s terms, the ick is a feeling of disgust that’s triggered by something that isn’t an obvious dealbreaker,” explains Eliana Saunders, a researcher in the psychology department of Azusa Pacific University, in California. “It’s a bit more nuanced.”

As one-third of the team behind a new paper on the phenomenon, however, Saunders also needs a more formal definition. “We operationally define the ick as ‘a sudden and visceral aversion to a romantic partner, often triggered by behaviors or characteristics that superficially signal incompatibility or low mate quality’,” she tells IFLScience, “but an earlier definition was ‘a feeling of disgust triggered by a seemingly minor or idiosyncratic trait/behavior in a romantic partner’.”

If I want to look good in public, I may be icked out by a partner who, say, wears jorts in a notably unsexy way.

Eliana Saunders

In other words: it’s that gut reaction that turns you off a person, even though you know what triggered it shouldn’t be that big a deal. So why does it happen?

Why do we get the ick?

It may be a quintessentially irrational reaction, but some experts think there might be a good underlying reason for the ick. 

“The idea […] is that humans developed a sort of radar to pick up on cues that a potential partner is or is not suitable,” Saunders tells IFLScience. “Dealbreakers can be pretty obvious (like a partner who has anger issues, poor hygiene, or other behavior issues), but the ick may be a mechanism by which we pick up on more subtle cues.” 

Say your ick is seeing a partner eat cold baked beans from the tin, for example. That could be a nonsense turn-off – but it also could be your lizard brain warning you not to mate with someone who can’t tell when food is rancid, because they might poison your offspring. Or, say you catch the ick after your date is a little rude to your waitress – that could be you preferring good manners (who doesn’t?) but it might also be your subconscious flagging a tendency for misogyny, and telling you to bail.

“The ick is […] a very strong gut reaction, either to the mannerisms of the person or the way they behave,” Gurpreet Singh, a relationship counsellor and psychotherapist at Relate, told Cosmopolitan earlier this year.

“It could be that you’ve picked something up in their value system that’s completely different from yours, the way they laugh or tell a joke might completely irritate you, or it could even just be their look or smell,” Singh explained. “There are a whole variety of reasons why the ick develops, but it’s a deep feeling that this person isn’t somebody you want to be with.”

But that’s just one perspective – and it’s probably the rosiest one, too. There’s no denying that the ick is a disgust reaction – it’s right there in the name, after all – and that means it comes with a ready-made ugly side for the ick-ers among us to reckon with. 

If I’m icked out by someone because they looked weird chasing a ping pong ball, is that really a problem with them or am I just being overly critical?

Eliana Saunders

“I think a lot of the specific icks that people have are reflections of social norms that we might want to challenge,” said Josh Rottman, an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Program in Scientific and Philosophical Studies of Mind at Franklin & Marshall College, in a December 2024 episode of NPR’s It’s Been a Minute. “So, sometimes people might feel the ick if their male partner is not being sufficiently masculine or something like that, and that might be a n aversion to the norm violation against masculinity. And so maybe for that person, that would help guide them to someone who is more masculine and who, in that particular society, would lead them to have higher social standing or something like that.”

It’s a perspective echoed by Saunders. “Your personal icks will typically reflect your social values,” she tells IFLScience. “So if I want to look good in public, I may be icked out by a partner who, say, wears jorts in a notably unsexy way.” [surely this is a tautology – ed.]

“There’s no exact science for it, and I would say that the ick can definitely go too far,” she adds, “and we pick at every little thing a partner does instead of just accepting some minor differences.”

Overall, though, “many [icks] appear to reflect aversions to superficial or socially reinforced cues with little bearing on compatibility or mate quality,” she points out.

Is there any coming back from the ick?

So, you’ve been hit by the ick. Maybe as the ick-ed; maybe as the ick-er – but here’s the question: what happens now?

Let’s start with the ick-er. Now, it is sometimes possible to get over an ick – but it might involve some harsh self-reflection. 

“If I’m icked out by someone because they were rude to a waiter, that may be a valid indication of a deeper issue,” Saunders tells IFLScience. But “if I’m icked out by someone because they looked weird chasing a ping pong ball, is that really a problem with them or am I just being overly critical?” 

“I think we should think more critically about our icks before we use them to write someone off completely,” she says. 

Our gut reactions can be powerful, but they are – kind of by definition – irrational. “I think we should always kind of step back and ask ourselves why we’re feeling the ick,” agreed Rottman, “and I think in many cases, if we do that, we’ll realize that there’s not a great reason for it.” 

“Overall, I think disgust is an extremely harmful emotion,” he told NPR – explaining that “probably these feelings of ickiness are not going to be great signals of whether someone’s going to be good for us and a good partner.”

But what of the other side? You’re on a date, and your paramour starts pulling away. You’re not sure what you did, but it’s clear this romance is going downhill fast. Can you salvage it?

Unfortunately – well, actually, no, definitely fortunately – there’s no way to force somebody to date you. But perhaps there’s another way of looking at this: it could be that you’re dodging a bullet here. Saunders and her colleagues found that “icking” was more likely among certain types of people: those who experience disgust more easily; those who expect extremely high standards from others; and narcissists. 

“Personality traits associated with elevated partner expectations and heightened sensitivity to a partner’s perceived flaws may also contribute to the ick,” reports the paper from Saunders’s team. “Narcissistic people are highly motivated to maintain an idealized self-image and often extend these high standards to their partners, expecting them to enhance their own status, attractiveness, and desirability […] Similarly, other-oriented perfectionism, defined as holding excessively high standards for others, may contribute to the ick by reinforcing rigid and often unrealistic partner expectations.”

In that case, then – and taking the ick as a sign of romantic incompatibility – perhaps the ick is in fact its own ick. After all, if some perfectly innocuous habit or facial feature is enough to make your partner’s skin crawl… well, maybe a long-term relationship wouldn’t be all that much fun in any case.

The study is published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.