The “ick”. A sudden reason one becomes disgusted by a person they were originally interested in. Some of my personal favorite icks are tripping and acting like nothing happened, when sauce is around their mouth, talking to their mom in a baby voice, singing a song and not knowing the words, being able to see the food in their mouth when they talk….the list goes on and on. But the real question is when and why did the ick ever become a thing that was so present in our generation. Do our parents also get the ick and just don’t mention it?
In my opinion, I blame social media and the ever-growing highlight reel that people portray as their life. Think about it: most of us got into social media when we were right smack in the middle of realizing boys/girls were cute and didn’t actually have “cooties”. Our young and impressionable minds were seeing all these guys and girls on Instagram being portrayed as perfect, and we believed that. This made it very difficult for us when we realized that people do A LOT of cringy things without even realizing it, hence the ick was created. And don’t worry, I’m included in the numerous people that have stopped talking to someone just because the ick got in the way and destroyed my perfect version of that person in my head. But why? If I just got over my stupid perfection mindset that all relationships have to be this movie type of love and the guy has to be Ryan Gosling or Zac Efron would I be in a relationship with one of the guys that gave me the ick?
So then we ask ourselves, what can I do to get rid of the ick so I can really give my future relationship a chance? Well, firstly you can train your brain to stop putting your partner on a pedestal. Bring them back down a level and realize they are human, they make mistakes, they can be cringey at times, and most importantly, so are you. Once you realize that you have also done some of the same things that give you the ick you’ll notice that they don’t really bother you as much as they used to. And while I don’t think the ick will fully go away, I do believe that you can better understand why you’re feeling this way and how you can lessen those feelings and accept your person for who they are.