The Ick

They are both reasonable and unreasonable.

Dec 08, 2023

You don’t get to choose what kind of stuff is going to stick around in your brain, not any more than a shopping cart tipped over in a stream can choose which color of discarded plastic bag will wind up snagged on its upturned wheels. Or anyway, I haven’t really had that choice, and my upturned wheels are absolutely lousy with discarded plastic bags at this point. I’d love to say I’ve moved on from all or even any of that petty stuff, but it would be a lie to say that I don’t actively judge people for enjoying a show like The Big Bang Theory. I’m less anxious and weird about it, I think, but my personal tendency to retain memories and feelings related to cultural sludge long beyond any utility are unabated. I asked for the check when I was on a date with a woman who said The Big Bang Theory was her favorite show, and it felt like kind of an apotheosis because, to me, a person’s taste in art says at least something about who they are, what they like, and what they want to be. (And whoever derives any enjoyment out of that show is clearly operating on a different wavelength than me. In retrospect, she also ran up my bar tab and lifted up her blouse to show me her scoliosis surgery scar.)

Despite my casually neurotic tendencies, I wound up with a lovely girlfriend who tolerates my cultural pretensions and jumped-up rants about Martin Scorsese. She mostly accepts my anxieties and breakthroughs and tragicomic moments of existential despair, mostly because she laughs at my chaotic way of being. But I was under the impression that a stable long-term relationship would immunize me from the ick. My girlfriend has informed me that I am rife with turn-offs, like whenever I rumble a thudding fart (I am just equalizing air pressure), or when she catches me fishing lint out of my bellybutton or launching a snot rocket whenever we walk the dog. In her grand declaration of her unconditional love for me, there seems to be a sudden blundering intrusion of caveats and escape clauses.

When I was single, a favorite first date icebreaker of mine was to swap dating horror stories, and over the years, this is how I learned about “The Ick,” which is when a guy does something that convinces a woman to never sleep with him. This is the least relatable thing to men because a woman could roll around in dogshit and we’d still consider going down on them.

Here is a list of my favorite icks that I have compiled from women over the years:

A guy “cleaning” his apartment by draping a blanket over the mountain of dirty clothes covering his ENTIRE futon.
Sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce at a picnic.
Including bathroom breaks in every story he told: “I went on a bike ride with my friend along the river, stopped to use the bathroom, then rode back,” or “I was at this concert, and before we found a spot, I went to the bathroom.”
Any man who uses the elliptical.
He would not say “bless you” after she sneezed.
On their way to the restaurant, he said “OOH” in a Ned Flanders voice and bent over to pick up a nickel off the sidewalk.
A guy went to pay for drinks and she heard the tear of a velcro wallet.
Sent her a selfie of him eating unseasoned chickpeas straight out of the can.
Wouldn’t stop talking about horses.
An older man divulged his skincare regimen only to complain about the bags under his eyes, then pulled back the skin around his temples to mimic that Bella Hadid eye facelift look and said, “I wish I looked like this.”
Following through on his bowling form.
When startlingly pink men begin increasingly baroque sentences with “as a Christian” in increasingly tremulous tones of indignation and rage.
Hopping over a puddle when it was raining: He thought he was keeping his socks dry, and wound up doing the same to his date’s pussy.

The ick is both reasonable and unreasonable. Some are floridly batshit and some lead down grim smoggy avenues and some are so vague and individuated that they go against everything men have been told about how to modernize their masculinity and be less toxic. A man could be ice skating with a penguin in an achingly earnest and reverent attempt at evoking his vulnerability—or to at least prove he’s been to therapy—and the woman may deliberate whether it could be a bit or decidedly not a bit. A woman I dated told me a story about how she went on a first date at a spin room, and the guy chased rolling, bouncing ping-pong balls like a toddler walking for the first time; this is a reasonable ick because this is not a fuckable position, but it’s also unreasonable because What is a fuckable way to chase a ping-pong ball?? I understood the feeling, but at that moment, I couldn’t relate to it. A woman could be a walking ick, waddling into my apartment chasing a ping-pong ball, farting, using the wrong “your,” and I would think to myself, Who is this angel?

But I have reminisced on dates where a woman would be rude to our server or bartender, and I am of the opinion that how a person treats service workers is highly indicative of their character. And then I started thinking of my own list of icks, and they are completely unhinged.

Kept saying “mood” in response to everything—this was in 2018 when it was out of control.
Taking a picture of every meal and then not eating it.
I did a language course in grad school and chatted up this cute Eastern Euro alternative girl. It had been years since I met a woman outside the apps or bars, so I enjoyed the slow-building tension and looks and waves and everything. After a few weeks, I got her number, and her Instagram was suggested to me. Her grid was full of K-Pop nonsense and interspersed with lame TikTok dances. Never lost attraction so quickly.
I found out this Latina chick was violently transphobic. She also made me play Cards Against Humanity with her roommates.
In undergrad, this co-ed I was casually seeing told me that Chris Martin wrote the song “Yellow” about her dumbass friend, who would hang out in our dorm room and unspool some obviously made-up spiel she told anyone in her vicinity. The fact she was gullible enough to believe her friend made me lose all interest.
Made out with a girl at a bar, and after, I went to the bathroom tasting Thousand Island dressing on my lips.
We were having a good conversation and then she just farted in the middle of it, didn't acknowledge that foghorn blast, or even change her facial expression. I couldn’t stop fixating on this complete breakdown of normal socialized behavior and I couldn’t help but think about what other weird shit she would do. It was a real George Constanza moment.
Said her favorite podcast was Pod Save America.
While we were hooking up, she was on top, and she stopped for a while, leaned her head to the side, and puked on the floor. Then she kept going at it. It was just so unsanitary—she should have let me doggy her while hanging over the toilet.
Littering.