Science of feelings: dating 'icks' (NPR)

Did your date give you 'the ick'? Here's the science behind the feeling

"Ugh, eww, and ick! I'm out! H to the NO!"

The food was top-notch, the atmosphere was cozy, and my date aimed to entertain. I love a good personal story, so I invited him to relate one that he'd referenced in his profile. Good fodder for a first date, I thought.

At one point in the story, as he recounted it, a goat butted its head into an outdoor toilet that he happened to be using, shoving the door open.

That's sick, Barry! Get out!!

"ME-EH-EHH!!" said my date, braying like a goat and thrusting his neck in a reenactment that seemed just a little too accurate.

Something inside me recoiled. Any trace of romantic or sexual interest I had in this man disappeared in that moment.

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You could say I got "the ick" — that feeling of disgust when someone you're dating does this one thing that you just can't get past. The term was used on Ally McBeal in the 1990s and then popularized more recently on the reality show Love Island and on Nobody Wants This.

Eews and icks

Ick, he said he listens to heavy metal garbage.

What gives me the ick and what gives you the ick can be worlds apart. From wearing acrylic nails to laughing too loud to using a Borat voice in the middle of a make-out session, a little internet searching will reveal a whole universe of "icks."

There's an idea in psychology that all emotions, from fear to disgust, were evolutionarily advantageous traits. But is the ick really serving us now?

One theory posits that disgust evolved to protect humans from pathogens that make us sick. And that kind of makes intuitive sense: If a piece of fruit or meat smells disgusting, you probably won't want to eat it.

But Professor of Psychology Josh Rottman, who studies disgust at Franklin & Marshall College, says disgust isn't just a biological function; it's a product of our socialization. And that means if you get the ick on a date, it might be time for some self-examination.

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Prof. Rottman spoke with It's Been a Minute host Brittany Luse about the psychology of disgust and the case for pushing past the ick when it comes to choosing a partner. Here are four takeaways from their conversation:

1. Little kids don't feel disgust — and that tells us something

Maybe innocence means not having disgust yet.

"Unlike many emotions that emerge within the first year of life or so, it seems like disgust doesn't really robustly come online until around 5, 6 years of age," Prof. Rottman says. (Think about the toddler who has no qualms about eating a stale Cheerio off the floor.)

If disgust were all about keeping us healthy, he says, researchers would see it in younger children. Instead, kids start experiencing disgust around the same time they start thinking about "cooties" — and who's in the "in" group and "out" group on the playground.

2. Disgust is more gut reaction than conscious thought process

If you're at the movies and you see your date pick her nose before reaching for your hand, you don't think, "This behavior is indicative of poor hygiene and lack of consideration." You just flinch and pull your hand away. This revulsion response happens almost instantly; it comes without any thought, says Prof. Rottman. And he says once you feel disgusted by something, it can be really difficult to overcome that feeling.

As host Luse of It's Been a Minute puts it, it's just "this tiny bit of disgust that you just can't look past or get over."

3. Disgust is related to social norms — often ugly ones

"I think a lot of the specific icks that people have are reflections of social norms that we might want to challenge," says Prof. Rottman.

For instance, actress Millie Bobby Brown has said her "biggest ick" is when a man holds an umbrella, because "there's something about it that just feels really pathetic."

Prof. Rottman says Brown's ick might be an "aversion to the norm violation against masculinity."

And research shows that the consequences of disgust can get a lot worse than getting rejected on a date.

Mr. Prejudice, 1943 (US bigotry)

Prof. Rottman says that disgust may have served an evolutionary purpose in that it could help your reputation to distance yourself from people who your group considered undesirable. "I think disgust has evolved as a way to really embody a lot of xenophobia and bigotry," he says.

"There's a lot of good evidence that genocides and a lot of horrific things that have happened in society have been correlated in some way with disgust," Prof. Rottman says.

Tables turn on racist/implicitly biased Karen

Nazi princesses promoted by racist Disney

For example, Nazi propaganda used terms like "parasites" and "lice" to describe Jewish people. Disgust has been leveraged throughout history to create the feeling that certain people are "impure" or less than human.

"The ick is probably a much more minor version of that," Rottman says.

4. It's worth trying to get past the ick

Why can't I find my one and only perfect prince?

Prof. Rottman says that while it's difficult to completely shake a feeling of disgust about another person's particular behavior, getting the ick doesn't have to be a deal breaker.

And, he adds, there's good reason not to give it too much weight in dating: "I think…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."

He shared that he even gets the ick from his partner from time to time — when she walks around barefoot in the garden, developing big calluses on her feet. "I think I can realize that…she's great in so many other ways, that that shouldn't be something to drive me away," Prof. Rottman says. (The professor said he got his wife's permission before sharing this story.)

As host Luse suggested to Prof. Rottman, perhaps "love is persevering against the ick."

So next time you get the ick, consider whether that says more about you than the other person.

And Luse says on It's Been a Minute, maybe "it's a you problem."

The triple plandemic ick at the coffee shop

• This story was adapted from an episode of It's Been a Minute, NPR's podcast about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. Listen to the original episode here.
• Corey Antonio Rose, B.A. Parker, Barton Girdwood, Liam McBain, and Jasmine Romero contributed to this story. Lead photo: munandme/Getty Images/iStockphoto
• Andrea Muraskin, Brittany Luse, Shots: Health News from NPR, Feb. 2, 2025; Ashley Wells, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly