577 - Should You Push Through the “Ick”?
Ever felt the Ick?
Have you heard of the Ick? Have you felt it? This episode, we’re diving into this concept of the “Ick” in relationships, whether it’s an early partnership or not.
What exactly is the Ick? It’s a “sudden and visceral aversion to a romantic partner, often triggered by behaviors or characteristics that superficially signal incompatibility or low mate quality.”
The Ick is distinct from dealbreakers and red flags, which refer to things like untrustworthiness, disrespectful behavior, poor communication, lying, anger issues, or substance abuse issues, for example. The Ick is more sudden and visceral, as stated above, and often doesn’t seem to make sense to us intellectually.
Researchers Brian Collisson, Eliana Saunders, and Chloe Yin discuss three categories that contribute to the Ick in 2025 research paper Personality and Individual Differences:
Disgust sensitivity: Those of us with higher disgust sensitivity experience stronger aversive responses to traits that might signal risks to relationship stability and reproductive success. Heightened disgust sensitivity could lead to stricter rejection thresholds, increasing likelihood of dismissing partners based on aversions unrelated to meaningful indicators of mate quality.
Narcissism: Grandiose narcissism, characterized by an inflated sense of self-worth and an expectation that romantic partners reflect and affirm one’s superior qualities, may intensify aversive reactions to a partner’s perceived shortcomings.
Perfectionism: Holding excessively high standards for others may contribute to the Ick by reinforcing rigid and often unrealistic partner expectations. People high in other-oriented perfectionism evaluate partners against strict, idealized criteria and are less tolerant of minor deviations from those expectations.
Common triggers for the Ick separated by sex included (according to this research study):
For women:
Gender-incongruent behavior (40%), e.g. a man laying his head on a woman’s shoulder.
Publicly embarrassing behavior (28%), e.g. Shazam-ing a song in a nightclub.
Annoying speech (22%), e.g. saying “wow, without me?” any time she did anything independently.
Fashion faux pas (14%), e.g. wearing jean shorts.
Misogynistic behavior (14%), e.g. loudly shushing another woman.
For men:
Overly trendy behavior (29%), e.g. being into astrology.
Publicly embarrassing behavior (21%), e.g. tripping in public.
Annoying speech (21%), e.g. using weird slang.
Physical appearance (15%), e.g. her feet not reaching the floor while seated.
Gender-incongruent behavior (13%), e.g. spitting gum in the trash “like a guy.”
Researchers also noted that while some Ick responses may serve a useful function, many appear to be reactions to superficial or socially reinforced cues and have little bearing on actual long-term compatibility.
What to do when you feel the Ick
So you find yourself feeling the Ick. What can you do about it?
Practice some mindfulness. “I notice I’m feeling an ick response.” Track it, but don’t assign any inherent meaning to it.
Connections: Does this ick feeling feel new and novel or old and familiar?
Make a road map. Consider giving everybody at least three dates without alcohol and without sex to evaluate your ick response. Consider journaling immediate impressions after each date or call, and note body impressions.
Be more explicit. Maybe you need a partner to be freshly showered or brush their teeth. Communicate if you’re sensitive to smells or body odor.
Take a break.
Accept it. Maybe something in your body doesn’t want this person. That’s okay. You don’t need to search for what it was specifically.
Ultimately, whatever flaws your potential partner has, they should feel like a small price to pay for how you feel in the relationship and who you are when you’re around this. Keep this in mind when evaluating your ick response too!
Transcript
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Dedeker: We know that in dating, inevitably you come out of a honeymoon phase at some point. And it can be, but it's not necessarily like a big harsh cliff that you fall off of where you're like, oh my God, suddenly I'm out of NRE and I can see this person just as a human being. Often I think it happens in tiny steps as you get to know someone and they become more intimate and you become incorporated into their daily life. And so I think some of the ick is also just like, oh yeah, you're a human being. Oh yeah, you're a human being. You have your own idiosyncrasies and your own habits and your own imperfections. I would almost make the argument that the ick is probably something that we all hit, even in a relationship that ends up being long-lasting with someone that we're crazy about.
Jase: Welcome to the Multiamory podcast. I'm Jase.
Emily: I'm Emily.
Dedeker: And I'm Dedeker Winston.
Emily: We believe in looking to the future of relationships, not maintaining the status quo of the past.
Dedeker: Whether you're monogamous, polyamorous, swinging, casually dating, or if you just do relationships differently, we see you and we're here for you.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're talking about the Ick. Maybe you're in the early stages of a new relationship, evaluating whether or not you're into this person, if you're attracted to them, if they'd be a good partner. You're asking questions about them, scanning for red flags, and then maybe, just maybe, one day you feel the ick. Or maybe this is a common pattern for you. You find yourself turned off by someone pretty early on in the relationship, even after it starts off good, and it's starting to feel like you just can't find anyone that you're into. Is this sensitivity helping you, or are your standards too high? What's going on with the Ick? We're diving into all of that today. If you're interested in learning about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show all the time, you can check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book. Or you can buy it wherever books are sold.
Dedeker: Okay, so before I hear the Ick stories from y'all, and I have one of my own to share, I do want to slide in real quick and just set the scene for what we're talking about here. So I found a couple different definitions online. I'm going to start with a definition that actually came from a scientific study that I will be citing.
Jase: Okay, I thought for sure this was just going to be Urban Dictionary all the way through.
Dedeker: That's the next one. Good job, Jase. That'll be the next one.
Emily: A little column A, a little column B.
Dedeker: Yeah, so we're going to start out academic. So this particular study that I pulled it from says the Ick is a sudden and visceral aversion to a romantic partner, often triggered by behaviors or characteristics that superficially signal incompatibility or low mate quality. Here's what Urban Dictionary has to say.
Emily: Good.
Dedeker: You could be on the chirps with a guy or girl, everything seems to be going fine, you think you like them, but then you suddenly catch the Ick. 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. You'll cringe— that's cringe with 6 Es— you'll cringe at the thought of you and them together. Nothing will be the same. You won't be able to do it any longer and eventually have to cut it off. I also had to look up what being on the chirps meant.
Emily: Yeah, I was just gonna say, good God, we are not—
Dedeker: not being on the chirps. This could be a UK young person slang.
Emily: Okay, possibly feel a little bit better, but it's like flirting with somebody.
Dedeker: Feeling somebody else.
Emily: What does that even mean? Chirps?
Jase: Like you're chirping at each other?
Dedeker: You're chirping at each other. You're like little birds. Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp.
Emily: Okay.
Dedeker: Now, to go back to the academic study, they go on to pull some pop culture references, some albeit dated pop culture references.
Jase: Well, they are researchers, so.
Dedeker: They are researchers, yeah. So for instance, in Friends Season 1, Episode 22, Monica becomes repulsed.
Jase: Season 1? Wasn't that like 30 years ago?
Dedeker: It does say 1995. So yeah, you called it 30 years ago, Jase.
Jase: Whoa!
Dedeker: Whoa!
Emily: I thought I was exaggerating, but I wasn't.
Dedeker: So Monica becomes repulsed by her boyfriend upon discovering that he's younger than he looks. In Seinfeld, season 8, episode 3 from 1996, Jerry is disgusted by his date's manly hands. And in Sex and the City, season 6—
Emily: I remember that one.
Dedeker: Yeah, season 6, episode 2 from 2003, Carrie is revolted by a lover after learning that he wrote her a love song. Now, this is a little sprinkling of how different the Ick can show up for people. And this isn't just from writers' rooms. There's some research to support that it can be this varied. And individual and maybe even arguably petty, perhaps. I wanna also make this distinct. We gotta distinguish icks from deal breakers and red flags that you may pick up on when first connecting with somebody. So common deal breakers and red flags could be something like they're untrustworthy, they're uncommunicative, they are disrespectful. Either they're directly disrespectful for me or maybe disrespectful to the wait staff. I know that's a common one that gets cited as a deal breaker or a red flag. They lie, or I caught them in a lie, they're dishonest, or they exhibit anger issues, or maybe they have a substance abuse problem that's not well managed, or there's things that they're not dealing with, right? So those are common deal breakers and red flags. That's an extra level above the ick.
Jase: So without further ado, I wouldn't say level above, it's just a different thing.
Dedeker: Yeah, it's a different thing. It's a different thing. So without further ado, you got any ick stories you want to share with the rest of the class?
Emily: I've talked about this person before, but it was a more recent potential love interest where this person was going through a breakup at the same time that we were courting each other.
Jase: Mm-hmm. Right.
Emily: And I think just because emotions were really high on their part, they exhibited a lot of sadness and anger and regret. And all of those things together kind of made me feel icky. Because at some points they were really upset and very angry and talked very meanly about their partner who they were going through this breakup with.
Jase: That's bad luck. Yeah.
Emily: And then when I actually got to hang out with them in person, they were crying over it a lot too. And I definitely feel for them, but when you're in the midst of getting to know someone, it takes you out of the chirps for sure. Yeah. It's not conducive to a a lot of like fun and frivolity and like ease. Yeah, and yeah, so that was icky to me.
Jase: Do you think though that that qualifies as the Ick, or was that more like red flags and deal breakers?
Emily: A little bit of both.
Dedeker: Yeah, I could see both, but I would put it more in the Ick category. Okay, well, here's my argument is I think this is tricky because when you're first dating someone, it's that mix between you want to put your best foot forward, not get too far ahead of yourself, but you also don't want to be just playing a role. You want to be authentic, I think, right? And also, some of getting close to somebody is taking emotional risks and being vulnerable, right? So him having emotions, I don't see as like, oh, it's fine, right? Like, oh, you're going through a breakup and you're having a hard time with it. I don't see that as a red flag. But okay, the way that I think about that situation is and just come along with me on this, please. But so from a neuroscience perspective, they find that with sexual arousal, the more sexually aroused we get, the more our brain switches off our disgust response or turns it down. Because if you think about it, when you have sex, you gotta sometimes you do some disgusting things, right? Totally.
Jase: You know?
Dedeker: Yeah.
Emily: Or you find kind of gross things hot in the moment.
Dedeker: Hot. Exactly. Right. In a way that maybe you wouldn't when you're not aroused. Right. Yes. And that's adaptive. We've evolved that way. And I kind of think about that, in that situation, that if you had been with this person a long time, developed a lot of intimacy, closeness, a deep emotional rapport, that yeah, I don't think you'd find his emotions icky necessarily, right? Or not want to deal with them. But when you're not at that stage of like, maybe I'll call it intimacy or emotional arousal, you're just like, ugh.
Emily: Well, outside of the confines of like trying to court each other and be in a flirtatious setting, I think if this were just a friend who I was, you know, getting to know maybe, and they were going through this really difficult thing and leaning on me for support, I could see that maybe being something that would be more okay and offering that to them. But when it was this super heightened emotion on either end of, I'm going to be really, really sad and I'm also going to be really, really upset and then trying to kiss you and make out with you and maybe sleep with you. All of those things together are just a little bit much.
Dedeker: Those tears are not lubricating anything.
Emily: No, no, they were, they were doing the opposite effect and made me want to exit out the back door. So that's how that ended. I do feel bad about it, just, you know, that that all happened at once.
Dedeker: It's not good timing, right?
Emily: It was bad timing.
Dedeker: Yeah, for sure. What about you, Jace?
Jase: I'm so hesitant to talk about it. I've been racking my brain to think about this because I will say I don't feel like I've had a lot of experiences of that you're into someone, you're chirping real good, and then suddenly you notice something in it and it takes you out of it. But it feels so petty talking about it now. This was forever ago. This was this is probably like Friends season 9 era. So a long time ago, 20 years ago, 20 years ago, maybe a little less than that. But no, I was I was dating this person, I was into her, Things were good.
Emily: And then—
Jase: and I and I'm gonna give a little more context of I worked in the beauty industry at the time as a hairstylist and like worked with estheticians, and I was kind of in that world a lot more. And one day I noticed that her makeup that she would wear, her foundation, would like crack, would be it'd have like kind of a flaky look to it, right? Like it had like a dry kind of flaky look.
Emily: And she just needed a better primer and some moisturizer.
Dedeker: You strike me as— you tend to, I think, like ladies without so much makeup, right?
Jase: I tend to like a not very made-up look. But yeah, but yeah, I just noticed that. Yeah, and it's— once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. And it like— it was that like, uh, look, I can't—
Dedeker: wow. Yeah, flaky.
Jase: I feel so petty. I know, I hate it.
Emily: I hate it. No, I mean, I feel like my makeup wasn't always like great when I was younger and first met you, but you dealt with it.
Dedeker: It's true. I think when I look back on pictures of the makeup I was doing when I first met you, I'm like, ooh, geez. Me?
Emily: Yeah. No, me.
Dedeker: No, me. Not your makeup.
Jase: I think you guys had fun, different styles back then, but no, there was just something about, something about the way that the makeup worked on her. I don't know if it was like a color mismatch or if it was the quality or if it was moisture. I don't know. I don't know what it was. Right. I didn't, didn't ever get to the bottom of that. Yeah. And then ended up a while later breaking that off and just couldn't do it.
Dedeker: Wow.
Jase: I didn't say that that was my reason why, but it was just sort of like, yeah, this is—
Dedeker: that was just part of the cracking, like, like her foundation.
Jase: Gosh, I feel so terrible.
Dedeker: Let me tell you, don't feel terrible because this, this falls under the purview of what science has found is part of common icks. It's not weird. It's actually not that weird. Okay, we'll get there. We'll get there. Okay, yes, great.
Jase: Thanks. I guess I'm comforted in the future.
Dedeker: The main ick story that came up for me was there was this guy who was in my friend group already, so I'd already known him for several years. And good guy, nice guy, right? I even thought he was cute, honestly. And then he hit me up in kind of a flirty way. Again, we'd already known each other for a couple years, but then—
Emily: how old were you?
Dedeker: Uh, I was in my mid-20s, I think.
Emily: Okay, but was this when we knew each other?
Dedeker: It may have been. There may have been some overlap, or it may have been towards the beginning of when we were first knowing each other. It's a little fuzzy. But anyway, So, like, hit me up, and, and I was kind of like, okay, sure, you know, like, I know you, and I know you're a good guy, right? And, and you seem cute, right? So, we went on a couple dates, and then when it escalated to actual sex— and, Jase, here's where I feel terrible. Here's where I feel terrible.
Jase: Okay, we can all feel terrible today.
Emily: Good.
Dedeker: When we actually, like, got naked and, like, started having sex, I had this moment of, No, we're friends. I can't be this close to your pubic hair. We're friends. Oh, like, I can't just—
Emily: like, really?
Dedeker: Yes. And, and like, and again, let me put in the caveat that like body hair in general, I don't care about body hair. Like, I've never— like, that doesn't weird me out. It doesn't gross me out. Like, if anything, I feel like I'm much more tolerant of— yeah, sometimes even into it, right? More tolerant of body hair than like we're socialized to be, especially as women. But there was just something about that where like being that physically intimate was just this sudden wake-up— no, no, I'm friends with this person. I'm not to this person. This feels weird.
Emily: Like, did you stop the sex right then and there? Were you like, I can't do this, I can't do this?
Dedeker: No, I soldiered on.
Emily: Oh, yikes.
Dedeker: I soldiered on. And it didn't last.
Jase: You didn't want to do it again, basically. You're like, yeah.
Dedeker: I don't remember if we ever did it again or not. And it was kind of like a slow fade from there. We did reconcile, like, several years later. He kind of reached out and kind of wanted to just like talk and like close the loop about all that. Again, good guy, still a friend, still a lot of respect for him. But like, yeah, there was just that one moment of just like, ick, no, I can't, I can't.
Emily: Yeah, interesting.
Dedeker: Yeah. Let's get into the science, shall we?
Emily: Please.
Dedeker: So there's a brand new study, 2025, done by Brian Collisson, Eliana Saunders, and Chloe Yin. It's called The Ick: Disgust sensitivity, narcissism, and perfectionism in mate choice thresholds. And this was published in Personality and Individual Differences. Yes.
Jase: A lot loaded into that title there.
Dedeker: There's a lot. Yeah. And actually, I'm just gonna go— I'm gonna start there, right? Because those are the three themes that these researchers build their hypotheses around and that they explore in the study. So we'll start with disgust sensitivity. So they talk about how people with higher disgust sensitivity experience stronger aversive responses to traits that signal risks to relationship stability and risks to reproductive success. And we're going to look at it through a hard and fast evolutionary lens.
Jase: Interesting.
Dedeker: Yeah. So they say that Heightened disgust sensitivity could lead to stricter rejection thresholds, increasing the likelihood of dismissing partners based on aversions unrelated to meaningful indicators of mate quality. So they're basically making this argument that in some people, they just have a higher disgust meter. And that is true. There's a lot of individual variation there, right? But sometimes it may be activated to the point where it's rejecting people not based on any quote unquote logical or rational factors. Again, if we're just thinking about you being a human body that's oriented towards reproducing with somebody, that if you think about our disgust response that we evolved to have is meant to keep us safe, right? So it's like we're meant to smell the fact that the food has gone bad, right? And that disgusts us. It keeps us away from it. It keeps us safe. It keeps us from getting food poisoning. And possibly the same thing that if a partner smells bad, right, that that may indicate to us, like, ooh, maybe they're not very healthy or there's something wrong, right? Yeah.
Emily: Or our hormones There's that too, right?
Dedeker: Like, you're not compatible.
Emily: Yeah, that was part of your audition process, Dedeker Winston, in choosing a mate, right? Yeah, I gotta smell you first.
Dedeker: Yes, exactly.
Emily: Yeah, yeah.
Dedeker: But they're just saying that sometimes the sensitivity can just be like a little too sensitive and may— certain people may just be a little bit, for lack of a better word, like a little bit more triggered. Their disgust may be triggered a little bit more easily by particular traits. So that's why.
Jase: So, so just to clarify with this, this is about disgust sensitivity that is the ick sort of stuff, not disgust sensitivity more generally of, like, you know, there's some people who if they even get the inkling that someone somewhere within a mile radius may have thrown up, they throw up immediately. Like, they just get— they have that kind of low threshold for disgust. So this is kind of a different thing than that.
Dedeker: I think it's a— they didn't clarify that necessarily, and they weren't studying that specifically, right? Like, they weren't trying to find comparisons.
Jase: That's where they were going. From the title, from the Disgust sensitivity, I'm like, or the people who really react to the sound of someone eating right near them.
Dedeker: Or, well, but again, I think that's variable. Like, I don't think it's monolithic because, sure, you know, like, I know people who, yeah, have like, like, very sensitive to the way that a partner smells, for instance, and like very sensitive to a partner's hygiene, especially when it comes to like wanting to have sex with somebody or something like that. But maybe they don't have that same sensitivity to people's mouth sounds or eating, right?
Jase: Sure, sure.
Dedeker: So, so I think, I think it's a little bit variable there.
Jase: Okay, okay.
Dedeker: So moving on to narcissism. So they say that specifically Grandiose narcissism, which is characterized by an inflated sense of self-worth and an expectation that romantic partners have to reflect and affirm one's superior qualities, it may intensify aversive reactions to a partner's perceived shortcomings. Now, when I when I read this, I just think about some of the worst dating content I've ever seen on social media, to be totally honest.
Emily: Oh, a lot of it is this, though, like the bad advice.
Jase: Yeah.
Dedeker: Yes.
Emily: Or just women coming out and being like, this, this, and this are all deal breakers because I deserve the best person ever that checks all of my boxes.
Dedeker: Yes.
Emily: And I'm not going to be with anyone other than that ever.
Dedeker: Yeah. I knew somebody who, who like liked someone but they were like a cashier at a grocery store, and so they were like, no, not good enough. Like, I want a man who is ambitious and wants to hustle. Like, yeah, not high status enough, right?
Jase: And right, right.
Dedeker: Well, I'm like, I don't know, I'm torn about like criticizing that. Like, whatever, everyone gets to have their standards or like what they're looking for or whatever.
Emily: But I think when it becomes like a big old laundry list though, like sometimes you are limiting yourself based on these preconceived notions of what it is that you quote unquote deserve. And when we look at things in that lens, I think that it can really cause us to overlook great qualities in a person that we may have just kind of passed by before.
Jase: Right. And I think, yeah, it seems related to something that I see in so many areas is that we as humans are lazy, right? And we don't want to do the work of making hard decisions. And nuanced decisions. And so we try to find shortcuts of like, this person is bad because they believe X politically or religiously or whatever. Or like this, it's— I have some particular standard that I don't date anyone who has ever dated someone whose name starts with K. Or, you know, some sort of arbitrary thing. Or like, I won't date anyone who works at a job where they stand on their feet. Or like, who knows what weird standard it is that you have.
Emily: They have to be ass-in-chair 15 hours a day.
Dedeker: Carpal tunnel.
Emily: Seriously.
Jase: Exactly. Like, if they don't have carpal tunnel, it's a deal breaker for me.
Emily: I just can't.
Jase: But it's a shortcut, right? It's like we want to not have to do the work of figuring out, oh, maybe this person's interesting to me, whatever. It's like, I just want a shortcut so I can just know. So I can just know. Even if that's not actually a very effective way to do it, we just, we're lazy.
Dedeker: Well, that leads into the third one, which is perfectionism. And so they define that as holding excessively high standards for others, which may contribute to the Ick by reinforcing rigid and often unrealistic partner expectations. People high in other-oriented perfectionism evaluate partners against strict idealized criteria and are less tolerant of minor deviations from these expectations. And I want to do a sidebar about other-oriented perfectionism. My personal experience is that any perfectionistic standard I hold other people to it's because I am holding myself to that horrible standard also internally, right? Right. Now, of course, myself and I think many other perfectionists, of course, we're human, right? And so it's easier to let ourselves slide to a certain extent than it is—
Jase: because we know our excuses. Exactly.
Dedeker: We know our excuses in a way that we don't know other people's excuses necessarily. So like, that's legit. But also, I just wanted to say that like, I think that other-oriented perfectionism and self-oriented perfectionism are probably the same binary star system. I, I don't think you can have one without the other.
Jase: Hmm. No, that's interesting. I'm actually— now I'm curious to know about research in that more generally, of like, how does that show up? Do people very markedly score higher on one or the other? Since I only have my own experience to go off of, and then, you know, conversations with people like you, Dedeker, of kind of the standards we hold ourselves to versus other people. But right, I do feel like I've had the experience of people that it seems like they hold others to a really high standard that I'm But you, but you, but you, have you seen you?
Dedeker: Yes, yes.
Jase: Oh my God, I'm actually really curious about that research now, but that's for another time.
Emily: Yeah, interesting.
Dedeker: I've had some really uncomfortable conversations with male partners about— oh yeah, male partners in the past— about kind of what they look for and how they screen and like their standards when they're like dating women in particular. And I've definitely had those moments in my brain where I've never said out loud, but where I'm like But you— have you? Yeah, but have you?
Emily: Maybe you need to be aiming slightly lower.
Jase: Yeah.
Dedeker: Okay, I have a proposed fourth factor. So outside of disgust sensitivity, narcissism, and perfectionism, I do think that our past baggage and trauma responses can muddy the waters of perception here in more subtle ways. Like, of course it can muddy the waters in very big ways, right? We can get very directly triggered, or, or our past baggage and trauma can make us a lot better at identifying red flags much earlier, right? It can really help us in that particular way. And also it can dial up the sensitivity threshold where it can be like, oh my God, he is vegan. My horrible ex was also vegan. No, I can't deal with it, right?
Emily: I don't know, just sorry.
Dedeker: I'm just right. Or, oh my God, oh, he's really into video games. No, my ex was just like obsessed with video games and neglected me, was horrible. Now I can't do that anymore, right? So I do think this can be a factor.
Emily: But I do think it's, I don't know, this one is difficult, right? Because when I'm, was talking about this person that I maybe was going to have a relationship with, but then ended up not doing so, when he was very angry and upset and really like mean about his partner and was kind of name-calling and speaking about her in such a way that really turned me off. That to me was a red flag, and that to me absolutely caused me to, I think, think back to times in my past relationship, my long-term relationship, where the same kind of thing happened between us. And I remember this person being very upset at me and calling me names and all of those things. And I just, I saw a pattern of behavior there that even seeing that, especially like at the very beginning when you're supposed to be on your best behavior with the person, I was like, I don't think this is gonna fly. So again, I get it, I get extenuating circumstances and people are going through a breakup and that brings up a lot of emotion, but I think, yeah, if you can't speak about your partner well, then that's rough. At least like offering some support and understanding and compassion.
Dedeker: Yeah, Emily, I think that particular piece I would definitely categorize under red flag for sure. That makes sense. So I want to get into what this research study actually found as far as what the most common icks were and who's most likely to experience them.
Jase: But first, we're going to take a break to talk about our sponsors for this show. Thank you to all of them for supporting this show so that we can put this out for free to the world every week. Please do take a moment to listen to them. And if any seem interesting, go use our promo codes, use our links. They're in the show description. And then, of course, if you would rather support the show directly and join our awesome community, you can go to Multiamory.com/join. And there you can get into our Discord. You can join us for our monthly video calls. You get ad-free episodes and just know that you're supporting us more directly.
Dedeker: Okay, so let's talk about what they found in this study. So first, they conducted a pilot study before getting to the main event where they analyzed a bunch of TikTok videos that were specifically tagged with the hashtag #theick. The Ick.
Jase: Okay. Really? Yeah, that's fascinating way to collect data. Yeah.
Dedeker: Yes. To identify what are the most common ick triggers that people talk about. And that informed the design of the main study. And I'm going to give you the list a little bit later because it is fascinating about what the most common icks are for men and women in particular. So after they did this pilot study, then the main study, they surveyed 125 single adults. So they found that 64% of participants reported having experienced the Ick, although most people said that it happened rarely or only occasionally. They found that women were more likely than men to be familiar with the term. So as in, 63% of women were familiar versus 39% of men, and that women were also more likely to have personally experienced it, as in 75% of the women and 57% of the men.
Emily: I feel like I hear far more women talking about it on social media than men. Having felt it themselves, you mean, not being the target of an Ick, but having felt it themselves and then speaking about it out on these, you know, larger kind of social media platforms.
Jase: And That's been my sense too, that it, that it feels more like women talk about this, whether that's just they call it that and men don't. Could be part of it, I wonder.
Dedeker: Sure. Yeah. So the explanation, or at least the predominant theories, again, if we're going to look at the evolutionary psychology route, which I think we always need to take with a grain of salt, is that, yeah, if we look at through the lens that for women reproducing is riskier and more dangerous, and therefore maybe they have evolved to need to have a higher sensitivity threshold to someone who may not be a good mate. That's sort of the evopsych—
Jase: sure—
Dedeker: theory around why that might be. However, what they did find in this study is that once people had experienced it, their frequency of experiencing the Ick didn't differ between genders.
Jase: So, like, it's like once you break the seal on Ick, uh-huh, you're icking all over the place.
Dedeker: Yeah, no, you're not necessarily icking all over the place. Most people say it happens only occasionally.
Jase: Right. But I see, but the gender difference goes away. That's why I wonder if it's more about identifying the Ick and like having that name for it. That—
Dedeker: yeah, possibly, right? Because especially through social media, if more women are talking about it and right, sure, women are more likely to see that content, that language spreads and the concept spreads faster within like a feminine subculture, I guess is what I'll call it, maybe faster than it would in a masculine subculture.
Emily: Yeah, sure.
Dedeker: So they found that 42% of people stopped dating the person after getting the Ick. 26% of people ended things immediately, but 32% kept dating the person anyway. So interesting kind of spread there.
Jase: Okay, wait, hold on, give me those numbers again.
Dedeker: Okay, so let me, let me, let me present them in smallest to largest. So, okay, 26%, a quarter of people ended things immediately as soon as they feel the ick. Done. Yes.
Jase: Okay.
Emily: Yeah.
Dedeker: Okay. 32% kept dating the person anyway even if they noticed the Ick. 42% of people stopped dating the person, but later, after getting the ick, not immediately.
Jase: Okay, but to look at this another way, two-thirds of the people did stop dating the person either immediately or after a little while longer.
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: Yeah, it's interesting about that third though that stayed— stayed with them. I want— I want to know if the Ick went away.
Emily: They pushed through the Ick, right?
Dedeker: Well, I don't know. I mean, Because this also gets me thinking about how we know that in dating, inevitably you come out of a honeymoon phase at some point, right? Earlier, later. And it can be, but it's not necessarily like a big harsh cliff that you fall off of where you're like, oh my God, suddenly I'm out of NRE and I can see this person just as a human being. Often I think it happens in tiny steps as you get to know someone and they become more intimate and you become incorporated into their daily life. And so sometimes, I don't know, some of that, I think some of the Ick is also just like, oh yeah, you're a human being. Oh yeah, you're a human being. You have your own idiosyncrasies and your own habits and your own imperfections. And maybe I feel a little bit like, huh, interesting, you're a human being. I'm not necessarily super turned on right now, but I still like am in love with you and attracted to you and want to keep exploring you and curious about you, right? So, so it's, it's— I would almost make the argument that the Ick is probably something that we all hit, even in a relationship that ends up being long-lasting with someone that we're crazy about. It's just that everything else that's going on is enough for us to keep moving forward and not feel like we want to shut down and pull out right away, as it were. As it were. So they did find that higher disgust sensitivity was linked to a greater likelihood of experiencing the Ick. Again, they said that these individuals with higher disgust sensitivity may have lower thresholds for aversion to these smaller cues coming from partners. They found that narcissism correlated with the likelihood of experiencing the Ick, but not the frequency of experiencing it, which suggests that narcissistic people may react strongly to specific perceived flaws rather than being people who experience the Ick constantly all over the place.
Jase: Okay, all over the place. Certain ones that Okay, they really just, yeah, don't jive with them, right?
Dedeker: However, perfectionism, the other-oriented perfectionism, correlated with both likelihood and frequency. So people with more perfectionistic, rigid standards both experience the Ick more often and across more situations.
Emily: Oh wow.
Jase: Hmm, interesting.
Dedeker: So it's like, that's again correlation, not necessarily causation, but it's like, that's maybe the bigger indicator that you're more likely to experience the Ick more.
Jase: It's perfectionism, not narcissism. Yeah, yeah, fascinating.
Dedeker: Okay, do you want to know what the most common triggers are?
Jase: Yes, I've been waiting.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: Do you have any guesses? Because so they split it by a gender binary. Uh, okay, sure.
Jase: Like, these are women's top icks, these are men's topics.
Dedeker: Yeah, this would be a good Family Feud question, actually.
Jase: Yeah, this would be good.
Emily: Yeah. Um, gosh, not— okay, for women, maybe not wanting to have kids.
Dedeker: Um, okay, no, no, and that one feels like a compatibility. They're pettier, they're for sure pettier.
Jase: Okay, okay, that was Emily's family's turn. Okay, it's my family's turn now. Uh, uh, we hit our buzzer. We're on Family Feud right now.
Dedeker: Yes, hello.
Jase: Yes, it's been a while since I've watched it, so I don't remember the flow of the game.
Emily: I'm gonna say—
Jase: oh gosh, um, doing your, your hair, uh, like having your hair be messy or unkempt.
Dedeker: Okay, uh, I'll take it.
Emily: This matters to Jase a lot.
Dedeker: Yeah, it does matter to Jase a lot. I will take it. Um, yeah, so physical appearance was among the most common triggers for men specifically. Oh, interesting. 15% of men, yeah, indicate physical appearance.
Jase: Thought that would be the other way around.
Dedeker: Interesting. Yeah, women have different things that are related to appearance.
Emily: What about like the way your house looks? The way that your domicile is, because that can be icky.
Dedeker: And it can be icky. That can be icky. That's not on the top list, but it's on my top list.
Jase: Sure. Gosh, we're okay.
Emily: Okay, it's quite something.
Jase: Smelling bad.
Dedeker: Um, let's see. Smelling bad, not on the list.
Emily: Oh my God, what are they?
Dedeker: Yeah, okay, all right, okay, all right. I'll just give you the breakdown. Okay, let's Go, let's talk about women first. So this is really uncomfortable. The most common Ick triggers for women— so 40% of women in the study cited gender-incongruent behavior. As in, that is— now, one— yeah, one of the examples that someone gave was like a man laying his head on her shoulder.
Emily: I love that. Are you—
Jase: I know, I like literally just did that to you yesterday.
Emily: Yeah, like my boyfriend did that on the way home from his parents' house when we were on the train.
Jase: Like, yeah, interesting.
Emily: 5 hours ago. Goodness.
Dedeker: Which is surprising to me. A little sad.
Emily: Yeah, that is sad, you know?
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: Wow.
Emily: Yeah.
Dedeker: 40%.
Emily: Now, reading Sue Johnson's Hold Me Tight and, and being able to, like, be kind of a little kid and be loved and held by your partner is so important. And not being able to do that just because you think it's icky.
Dedeker: Although, but I wonder, because I'm thinking about your story, Emily, and you didn't frame it in terms, like, more disgusting terms of, like, uh, he wasn't being a man, right? He was like crying all over the place, right? But maybe somebody would see it that way, right? Like maybe somebody would see, ah, this man is being more tender, being more open, being more emotionally available.
Emily: I mean, I feel a little like— yeah, the, the excess of emotion was a turn-off. I will give you that. Like, I felt like around me, someone that he was interested in maybe dating, he needed to hold it together a little bit more.
Jase: More context-based than just in general he's emotional. It's within the context of being with someone he wants to date, he should keep it together.
Emily: Well, at least like at that stage of relationship, that was what I felt.
Dedeker: But again, I could also see somebody having like framing it through those gender role— yeah, framing it through a gender role lens.
Emily: Not always, but sure, I could see that.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Emily: Wow.
Dedeker: So not great, women, let's get it together. Yeah. Okay, the next most common ick trigger for women is publicly embarrassing behavior. So that was 28%. Now, one of the examples they gave— somebody gave— was, I guess, this guy Shazam'd a song in the nightclub.
Emily: Oh my God, my boyfriend does that all the time too. Not in the nightclub, but like at the, you know, dinner table or whatever when we're at a restaurant.
Dedeker: I will— okay, I will though. I think this one could get to me. Not Shazam-ing specifically. I have no judgment about Shazam-ing, but like I have in the past if somebody exhibits some kind of publicly embarrassing behavior, like they can't read the room, you know, or they can't modulate their volume or things like that. Like, yes, that will definitely give me the ick. Yeah, if I feel embarrassed to be around you, that's fair enough, right?
Jase: You're—
Emily: other people are probably also embarrassed to be honest.
Jase: I don't want to attach myself to you as like a relationship unit if you're gonna embarrass me, because then I'm embarrassed.
Dedeker: Yeah, yes.
Jase: Yeah, exactly. Okay, that makes sense.
Dedeker: Yeah. Uh, next was Annoying speech. So that was 22%. Um, the example they gave here was a guy saying, oh wow, without me, whenever she did anything independently.
Emily: Well, that sounds controlling.
Jase: I wouldn't say annoying speech. Yeah, I would put that in a different category. Yeah, we need to talk to these researchers and, uh, talk to TikTok.
Dedeker: That's, that's, that's what they identified from TikTok. This wasn't them coming up with it independently, right?
Jase: Okay, sure, sure.
Dedeker: Fashion faux pas. So I think that's the appearance one for women.
Jase: Um, interesting that it's more fashion faux pas.
Dedeker: Yeah, specifically the example was wearing jean shorts.
Emily: I mean, those are egregious.
Dedeker: It— I would— I think I would feel a little icky about someone rolling up in some jorts.
Jase: That's so funny.
Emily: I was— unless I was in the '90s, it would be totally fine.
Dedeker: Well, but it's not the '90s. We're not watching Friends. It's not Friends season 1.
Jase: I kind of want to go get some jorts now.
Dedeker: No, just to bother me.
Jase: Just to bring back the '90s vibes, you know.
Emily: I bet there are some at a thrift store in Japan that you could go find. There's probably some. Yeah.
Jase: Yeah. Okay.
Dedeker: And then the last one of the most common ick triggers, uh, misogynistic behavior.
Emily: Yeah, sure.
Dedeker: Yeah. That, that starts to slide into the line of, is it a red flag?
Jase: Right. I was going to say. Yeah.
Dedeker: Yeah. The example that somebody gave from the study was a guy like loudly shushing another woman. Which, that I could see maybe from the guy's perspective, him not realizing that that's misogynistic, you know.
Jase: Sure, sure, right.
Emily: If a guy was like mansplaining something constantly to every woman, gosh, yeah, that would also be icky and feel misogynistic.
Dedeker: Yeah, yeah. Okay, so the most common triggers for men.
Emily: Yeah, fascinating. I want to know this and if that jives with you, Jase.
Jase: Yeah, I'm really curious.
Dedeker: What's this one? Is a little bit unclear, and I think we can pick it apart.
Jase: Okay.
Dedeker: Overly trendy behavior. Now the example they gave was like being really into astrology.
Emily: Okay, that's not where I thought we were gonna go with that.
Jase: I mean, interesting. That's not where I thought that was going to go. He said really, really trendy behavior. I assumed it was going to be like suddenly she owns 5 Le Boubous and—
Dedeker: oh, maybe it could be that. Maybe it could be that.
Emily: That's pretty trendy.
Jase: That just feels— I guess when I think trendy, I think like consumerist trendy versus getting into astrology, or like she's suddenly super into Enneagram, or like, uh, now she's sure really into Pilates or something.
Emily: What's wrong with those things though?
Jase: Like, nothing's wrong with them. That's—
Emily: well, well, they're expensive.
Jase: I don't know about— I don't know about the LaBoobooz. I've got—
Dedeker: well, we're not here to discuss LaBoobooz, unfortunately.
Jase: That'll be on this future episode.
Emily: Let us know. Future episode.
Dedeker: Now here, so the next two match the same ranking as the women, and they're the same. It's publicly embarrassing behavior and annoying speech.
Jase: Did they cite any examples of what annoying speech means for the men or women?
Dedeker: In this one, the example they cited was her using weird slang, which I'm like, oh, that's going to be a problem for me because I love using weird slang and weird—
Emily: wait, what? What constitutes weird now? Like, oh, hi, oh, is— or wait, that's not— that's so like like last year. I know, you're like skibidi toilet.
Jase: Even more out of date.
Dedeker: Yeah, yeah. So at about the same rate as women listed the fashion faux pas, men list physical appearance. The weird example one of them gave was about her feet not reaching the floor while seated.
Emily: What? What?
Dedeker: That's too much of a shorty.
Jase: I know, short. That's okay. That one, that one threw me off. I didn't expect that.
Emily: I mean, yes, it's your appearance, but like, if you decide to go out with a short woman—
Jase: yeah, I'm like, you're the one that started dating her. Woman, like, what do you— what's your deal?
Dedeker: Place with lower bar stools.
Emily: There you go.
Jase: Weird. Okay.
Dedeker: And then the last one is gender-incongruent behavior. But it's interesting that that's a much lower percentage in this study. So only 13% of men cited that, as opposed to 40% of women citing gender-incongruent behavior.
Jase: And it was the top one for women.
Dedeker: It's the top one for women. Yeah. The lowest one of the top 5 for men. The example that one of the participants gave was, I guess, a woman spitting gum in the trash like a dude.
Emily: I've totally done that.
Jase: I feel like that's more like— I don't know, I would put that under maybe embarrassing behavior or something if, if you felt like that was rude.
Dedeker: Sure, sure.
Jase: In general, I guess that's the question.
Dedeker: Now, to analyze this, I'm kind of like, yeah, this is weird, but it also kind of makes sense because to look at broad trends, we have— I mean, of course misogyny is still an issue and the work of feminism is not done. However, the work that feminism has done is make it so that there are more acceptable ways to be a woman and to still be considered a woman.
Jase: That's what I was—
Dedeker: more acceptable ways to act, behave, dress, style yourself. That's not to erase, like, the misogyny and problems that women still face. However, I think we have widened the spectrum of how one can show up and still be considered a woman who's performing your gender correctly. Much more so than as much for men. Yes, not as much for men. At least in America. Weirdly, I feel like Japan has— Japan has its own gender issues, but I also feel like there's more acceptable ways for a man to be and still be considered a man. Yeah, it seems like it, honestly. Yes.
Emily: Yeah, right.
Jase: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like certain types of androgyny or like playing with aspects of presenting more like the other gender, if we're working in a binary here, that— yeah, it's like, yeah, different cultures accept that more. And I do feel like Japan has a lot more flexibility in terms of how men dress and do makeup, wear earrings, like that kind of thing, do their hair. It's a little more, yeah, accessible to—
Dedeker: again, not erasing the gender issues. Oh, they've got plenty of their own issues.
Jase: Okay, sure.
Dedeker: Yeah, so the researchers note that, you know, some of these ick responses could be serving a useful function, right? They could be helping to flag some genuine incompatibility for you. It's not like these are completely irrational. Completely not useful to you, but many appear to be reactions to superficial or socially reinforced cues with little bearing on actual long-term compatibility, right?
Jase: Right.
Dedeker: You know, the man puts his head on your shoulder, that may not necessarily be an indicator that it's not going to work out, right?
Jase: Right.
Dedeker: Yeah, it could be a green flag actually, or even somebody— I don't know, maybe they do embarrass you by Shazam-ing a song in the nightclub. That may not necessarily mean that they're embarrassing all the time. Right? It could just be this one moment. Yeah, which makes this difficult. Really quickly, before we go to our next ad break, I was curious to look at this from a non-monogamy perspective. Like, do we think there's any non-monogamy-specific icks? Again, outside of the realm of red flags, outside of the realm of, hmm, I just don't think we're gonna work here, but like stuff that's at this lower threshold that comes to mind for you?
Emily: I mean, potentially texting a prospective partner in the middle of a date might be a little icky to me.
Dedeker: Like on a date with you and they text somebody else? Interesting.
Emily: Yeah, if they're having a lot of feelings or excitement for a new partner and they're just constantly looking, checking their phone, texting them, that might feel a little weird.
Dedeker: Sure. Yeah.
Emily: Gosh, other non-monogamy-specific things. Yeah, I mean, it also from like a sexual health standpoint, maybe someone who chooses not to— well, that— and also that might run into like potentially red flag stuff, but someone who chooses not to get tested or, you know, be open and honest about where they are in terms of their sexual health status.
Dedeker: Yeah, for sure. Ones that I've seen people talk about, though not framed as icks necessarily, but what I've seen people talk about are things like if you pick up early on, oh, this person's like a really heavy dater, as in like, oh, they go on a lot of dates, right? Or they have a lot of partners, or they seem really saturated, but they're not saying that they're saturated. I've definitely seen people get that kind of like, like, I don't know about this. Or I've seen people talk about, you know, if they start dating someone and they pick up on like, oh, you seek out people who are significantly younger than you as a pattern, right? Or you—
Jase: yeah, maybe helps you identify patterns in a way you wouldn't.
Dedeker: Yeah, or you fetishize a particular type of person. I don't know how I feel about that. That feels a little bit icky. Those are ones I've seen people talking about.
Emily: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Jase: Yeah, I noticed that everyone you date is also an Asian woman.
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: Feels weird.
Dedeker: Yeah, I've been in that situation.
Jase: Yeah, I was also thinking, and again, I don't know if this one falls into more of a red flag or an Ick, but— and this one varies all the time— but if they sort of give clues in terms of what content creators they're into, if I know that those communities tend to be more like, let's tear other people down for any mistakes that they make. Maybe that's more of a red flag though, but I do feel like there's some— and it's sometimes not like I've seen them do this, but just that they like someone who I've seen do those sorts of campaigns online of like tearing down allies.
Dedeker: I— yeah, I've had some, some questionable dating advice served up to me on social media. Talking about that, like specifically on Instagram of like this person you're interested in, go check out who they're following and controversial. Just that's con— I do think it's controversial. I do think it's controversial because yeah, I don't think you can fully judge someone based on like, I don't know, one visit, a hate follow or a love follow. Is it a hate follow? Is it a love follow? Does this indicate a trend about what they're interested in? Like, who knows? Right. I do think that's controversial, but I could see someone kind of getting the Ick. Over that.
Jase: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Dedeker: Like, I see whether the ick is being helpful to them or not helpful to them in that situation, I could see it producing the ick.
Jase: For sure, for sure. So before we move into the final section of this, we're going to take another quick break to talk about our sponsors. Again, please give it a listen. We try to be entertaining during our ad reads as much as we can, and check them out if they're interesting to you. Of course, use our promo codes and our links in the show description. Or of course, we would love it the most if you wanted to support the show directly by going to Multiamory.com join and joining our amazing community there and supporting the show directly and getting ad-free episodes in your own custom feed.
Dedeker: Okay, so what are we supposed to do about all of this? How are we supposed to think about this? Again, I think the first question it's important to ask yourself, if you've had this experience, first of all, do I feel like this is helping me or is it holding me back? Do I feel frustrated? Do I feel like I'm very sensitive to these things? And I feel like I can't find a partner because I keep rejecting people, right? So, so some of it is going to be down to like, do you feel like this is a problem in your life and that this is actually holding you back from the things that you want? And if that's the case, then I think there are some things that you can try. The first one right out the gate is I'd recommend just being mindful of it, you know? Like, if you notice that feeling, whatever it is, like when you're getting to know someone, you can just say to yourself, huh, I notice that I'm feeling an ick response. It doesn't have to be a fact. There doesn't have to be any inherent meaning to it yet. It can just be like, huh, I'm noticing this response. Let's track that. Because I, I think unless someone on a date does something really egregious where you're just like so turned off and you're like, oh yeah, there's no way this is ever going to work out, like, I would not recommend letting that first ick response be the thing that encourages you to just like cut things off right away. If you still— if you still also experience curiosity about this person at the same time, I'm like, still keep following that, right? And you have more opportunities to get more data of, like, does this ick feeling come up for me again? Does it come up in other situations?
Jase: Yeah, I think that makes sense. I also think it's worth noting in that study that one-third of those people stayed with them. And thinking about some of those top icks that we learned about, I could see being those things where, like, this made me uncomfortable because it was surprising when he put his head on my shoulder, and that I didn't think that was how men were supposed to act, or something like that, right? Or they did this thing that I thought was embarrassing, but maybe over time it becomes more of this, oh, that's a weird thing, but it's just not what I was used to, and now I've adjusted to it. Versus others where it's like a precursor to a red flag type thing.
Emily: But like, it's an opportunity to examine within what your response is to and reasoning behind why you might find that to be an icky thing.
Dedeker: Yes. Yeah. Well, that's the next one, right? Yeah. So then the next one is connections. And you can ask yourself just a very simple question that, like, when you catch yourself feeling that feeling, you can ask, huh, this particular feeling, does this feel new and novel? Or like maybe even surprising to me? Or does this feel old and familiar? Do I feel like I've been here before? And if I feel like I've been here before, what comes up? Is it my past relationship? Is it the last person I dated? Is it something much older? And that's just grist for the mill. Again, it's just more data for you.
Emily: Yeah, yeah.
Jase: And I think it's worth doing that too without judgment, where it could be something about this person— I think they're interesting, but they give me the Ick— and you realize it's their voice or their speech pattern reminds you of your dad, or, you know, this person that you dated in the past that was bad, it's like that could still end up being a reason to not date that person. But being aware of it, it's not the problem with them, but that it's a thing in yourself without—
Dedeker: Yeah, that just reminded me that, yeah, there was someone I dated, someone that I actually— I was, I was set up with this person, and then it like turned out we had like mutual friends from like different friend groups, which is kind of this weird coincidence. And this guy was cute and I was attracted to him, but he also looked so much like my childhood best friend. Like, so much. And he also knew my childhood best friend. Like, they knew each other. That was even weirder. Like, they'd gone to college together. This guy looked so much like him, and, and I was so confused because I was like, I'm into this guy, and, and we're like vibing, the conversation is good. But I remember, like, on like maybe our second date or third date or something, we like we had met up at one location, like got a meal, and then we're like, oh, we're gonna go drive like to this park or whatever. And we were in LA, so we take separate cars, right? And I remember just like he was behind me and like looking in the rearview mirror, like looking at him, just like, oh my God, it's just— it's my childhood best friend.
Emily: Like, I can't—
Dedeker: like, how could I kiss this man? Like, it's like kissing my brother.
Emily: Interesting.
Dedeker: Wow. And I did try to push through it. I did push through it. And then— and then got to the secondary Ick, which was like the sexual compatibility was just not— it was just not right, you know? But I pushed through to find out.
Jase: Well, yeah, no, that's good. Yeah, no, I, I— that reminded me too. There was someone that I— so I wasn't— it wasn't the same dating, but it was a little bit more of a friends with benefits type thing. But the first time we were hooking up, suddenly she just reminded me of my sister, and I was like, I remember that.
Dedeker: I can't—
Jase: I can't—
Dedeker: yeah, okay.
Emily: Yikes.
Dedeker: So the next tool or suggestion I would give folks is to make a roadmap for yourself. And what that means is it could be something like, okay, like let's say you're entering a chapter where you're very intentionally dating, or you're on the apps, or you're lining up a bunch of dates. Maybe you might decide something like, okay, everyone that I connect with, I'm gonna give them 3 dates. And specifically, it's going to be 3 dates without alcohol and without sex, purely to give myself as much of a clear runway as possible to have a sense of who this person is and how my body feels around them. I've been really into myself personally as I've kind of slowly started dating more Whenever I have a phone call with somebody or go on a date with somebody, once the date ends, I immediately just quickly jot down my impressions, right?
Jase: I was gonna say, you journal about it.
Dedeker: Yeah, I do.
Emily: Oh wow.
Dedeker: Yes, I do, because it is so valuable, and my journaling app lets me tag things, so it makes it even super easy to sort by person, right, to get a sense of overall trends. I use Journey.
Jase: Yeah, you get a sponsorship from them.
Dedeker: I know, we really should get a sponsorship from Journey. Um, Yeah, but I found that super helpful, like, just in the moment, like, immediately once it's done, to be like, okay, these are things we talked about, this is what I liked, this is how my body feels right now, this moment I wasn't so sure. And, and, and I try not to belabor it. I try not to do like a full blow-by-blow of absolutely everything, just like those initial impressions, because I do think that's really important. And also, if there's like something icky, right, it's just important just to note it. Like, that's all I noticed at this particular moment, and, and that's it. So the next one I call gas and brake, and this is specifically stolen from Emily Nagoski because that's her metaphor for dealing with arousal specifically, right?
Jase: You need to push the gas but also let go of the brake.
Dedeker: Well, you gotta identify what pushes on the gas pedal and what pushes on the brake pedal for you when it comes to physical intimacy and arousal. And I think she frames it more in the context of like long-term relationships But I think the same can be said here, like when you're getting to know somebody, and especially if you're wanting this to be like a romantic connection or a sexual connection, to identify those things of these are the ways that I notice about this person that push on the gas pedal to make me want to get closer to them, or these are things that I know so maybe pushes my brake pedals where I'm not entirely sure. Yeah. And as you're getting closer to someone, you can be more explicit about this, right? Like let's say you do enter into like a sexual connection with somebody you can be more explicit. It's okay to ask for like, yeah, I have this particular sensitivity, and so like if somebody's freshly showered, that pushes on my gas pedal. If somebody isn't freshly showered, that's more likely to push on my brake pedal. Or I'm really sensitive to, to smells, or like you having your teeth brushed, or like whatever it is, right?
Jase: I'll tell you, with, with Dedeker, it's if you've had anything with canned tuna in it within the last several days, her emergency brake is pulled all the way.
Dedeker: Like, I I don't even— don't— I can't— I can't even—
Jase: you can't even hear the thought.
Dedeker: Like, my disgust sensitivity to canned tuna is extremely high.
Emily: I mean, I get that.
Dedeker: Extremely high. It's— yeah. Next one, just take a break. Just take a break. So I actually have another research study to cite here. So this is from Pronk and Denissen. This was published in 2020. It's called A Rejection Mindset: Choice Overload in Online Dating. This was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science. So this was a collection of 3 studies, and they found that participants became increasingly likely to reject potential partners the more profiles they were exposed to in a dating app context.
Jase: Sure, sure.
Dedeker: Yeah. Resulting in an average decrease of 27% in the chance of acceptance from the first to the last partner option. And they found that this was driven by the more people are swiping, the more they grow dissatisfied and pessimistic. Right? So they get more dissatisfied with the options presented to them. They get more pessimistic about their chances of meeting success. Yes. And that suggests that combination of the dissatisfaction with the pessimism means that people gradually close themselves off from opportunities the longer they spend in online dating specifically. Now, I want to put in a note that this is just about rejection of people's profiles, right? It's unclear if this translates to also like if you're in person going on a lot of dates with people in person, or if you're speed dating or stuff like that. That's unclear.
Jase: Yeah, I could see maybe speed dating, but where I feel like the difference with swiping is you've seen them all within seconds or minutes at the most of each other, versus like a date each day, even two dates a day. There's more of a gap of time between those to sort of reset your brain.
Dedeker: Yes. Yeah, so that's just something just to think that like if you're noticing it, like you're having an ick response, like more often than not, just like take a little break, just see what happens, right? Dating is a little reset. Maybe from dating, maybe from being on the apps.
Jase: Like, I would even say that could be effective at more of a micro scale of if you are on apps to try even really limiting yourself to say, I'm going to look at 5 profiles today and after I've swiped 5, that's it for today.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: So it's not about like I'm going to take a break for a week. But just limit the amount so there's less of that feeling of fatigue, I guess, right? Or getting pessimistic or something.
Dedeker: And the last thing is maybe just accept it. If you're having it come up and it's not really going away, maybe it's just something in you and something in your body just doesn't want this person, right? And that's okay. And maybe you can judge yourself or be like, maybe it's irrational, I don't know. But, but it's like, if this is causing you distress, like, you don't need to go hunting for like, I need to find the rational reason why. There's just something in you that's just not picking up what that person is putting down.
Emily: Yeah.
Dedeker: And maybe that's okay. Maybe it's okay. Ultimately, where I think all this is headed for me, the way that I understand this, is that whatever flaws or imperfections you pick up on that a potential partner has, I think the North Star is that these flaws and imperfections should ultimately feel like a small price to pay for how you feel connected to them and who you are when you're around them. And I think that's the key with those like 30% of people who are able to push through the Ick and keep dating the person, is that just feeling the Ick in itself is not going to be an indicator of whether or not this person is actually going to be a good partner to you or not. Like, it all comes down to, okay, yeah, I noticed this thing, maybe they do this cringy thing, or sometimes they're embarrassing or whatever, but does that feel like a small price to pay based on how wonderful they are? In other regards.
Emily: Yeah, yeah.
Jase: No, I think that's a good metric to think about it.
Emily: Price of admission.
Jase: Yeah, to not ignore the ick as like, oh, I should just push through and I'm, I'm petty if I have this thing, but more to look at it in the big picture, to just say, yeah, I experience this. But I think it's easy to get kind of laser focused on an ick when you notice it, and I think maybe that's the clue, is to zoom out a little bit more to look at the whole picture of this person. And it can be like, are you already feeling meh and this ick is just what pushes you over the edge? Or is everything else good and now for some reason I'm just fixating on this thing? Maybe, maybe there's something there I can get past or think about differently or something.
Dedeker: Okay folks, of course we want to hear from you. What was the last dating ick you experienced? I hope among our listener base we don't get anybody saying that it was gender-incongruent behavior. That's the—
Jase: or give us an interesting story about why that was. Yeah, curious about it. Yeah, it's an interesting one.
Dedeker: Yeah, okay, so that's going to be on our Instagram stories on the day that this episode drops. So if you go to Multiamory_podcast, you can answer that on our stories. Also, the best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is in the episode discussion channel in our Discord server, or you can post about it in our private Facebook group. You can get access to these groups and join our exclusive community by going to multiamory.com/join. In addition, you can share with us publicly on Instagram @multiamory_podcast.
Dedeker: Multiamory is created and produced by Jase Lindgren, Emily Matlack, and me, Dedeker Winston. Our production assistant is Carson Collins. Our theme song is Forms I Know I Did by Josh and Anand from the Fractal Cave EP. The full transcript is available on this episode’s page on multiamory.com.