What exactly is 'the ick' and why is everyone talking about it?

The Love Island saying has become a regular term for describing dating turn offs - here is exactly what it means and what to do if you feel it

People have been sharing some hilarious reasons for getting 'the ick' online. Picture: iStock.

We’ve all been there. You’re dating someone, it’s all going well, and then all of a sudden one day they do something that just...irks you.

The scientific term for this phenomenon? The ick.

Alright, maybe it hasn’t exactly been studied in a lab just yet but the ick is a very real thing, as proved by the current trend where users are sharing their own ‘ick’ experiences online.

Discussions about the ick have been around for a while now, but this week’s heightened interest has to do with a certain reality show that is currently on air: Love Island, of course.

Where else would someone openly admit on live telly that their partner’s choice of cheese gave them the ick?

"He's quite, like, boring," Priya told her fellow islanders following a date with Brett in a recent episode. "Just small things, like our favourite cheese, I'm pretty sure he said something boring like brie but I kind of want someone who will try all kinds of cheeses."

There have been arguments over the origin of the term but many pinpoint it back to another Love Island contestant, season three’s Olivia Attwood.

"At the end of the day when you are seeing a boy and you get the ick it doesn't go," she said on the show. "And it's one of those things, once you've caught it, it takes over your body. And it's like... it's just ick."

 

A relationship expert and psychotherapist at Relate, Gurpreet Singh, explained things a bit better for Cosmopolitan.

"The ick is different to just doubting whether you want to be with somebody. The ick is much more repulsive. It's a very strong gut reaction, either to the mannerisms of the person or the way they behave,” she says.

"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 be just their look or smell. 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."

Unsurprisingly, the feeling probably won't go away, no matter how much you try to suppress it.

According to the Urban Dictionary: "From then on you can't look at the person in the same way, you just progressively get more and more turned off by them, weirdly and maybe for no reason in particular grossed out by them."

 

The feeling can hit at any time, but experts usually expect it to pop up either towards the start of the relationship or when the ‘honeymoon phase’ starts to wear off a few months in. It’s an unconscious gut response, which is difficult to fight.

Earlier this year, a contestant on First Dates Ireland told cameras that she believes she gets the ick as a form of “self-preservation”.

“I get the ick really quickly,” Niamh Hogan said. “It can be the way somebody replies to a text message. It can be the smallest little thing, like if I don’t like the way he chews his food.” 

A few other examples being shared online include everything from typing “hehe” rather than “haha” in text messages to having a bank account with Permanent TSB.

Anyone else refuse to date people with the same name as your ex? Biggest form of #theick

— maddy.pdf (@know_mads) August 27, 2018

 

Many of us have probably had the ick without even knowing it, like some of the Tiktok users who have been sharing stories of slowly being turned off by a partner’s rudeness or fashion sense.

If the annoyances are easier to put your finger on - and much more minor - it might be time for a sit-down. The question is whether or not you should stick in the relationship if you feel the ick coming on.

"It depends whether the behaviours that irritate you are negotiable and whether they can change them,” said Singh. “But if it's not something they can change, like their natural mannerisms, then it's better to understand sooner rather than later that the relationship isn't going to work because that will allow you to move on more quickly to a relationship that is right for you."