THE ICK-PEDEMIC
THE ICK-PEDEMIC
You're enthralled. Your phone lights up with a text from him. You feel the effects of the crush wash over you. The butterflies are ablaze and flying free in your stomach. You start picturing your wedding. Some might call this limerence but you blame it on an overactive imagination. In your day dream you settle on a Danielle Frankel wedding dress. One that hugs your curves and accentuates your waist. It's perfect. You start thinking of your first dance and what song to choose as you pick up your phone to read his message. You finally settle on “At Last” by Etta James and then you read it: “Yo Yo Yo wassup big dog. I just finished my set at the gym. Wanna get some white chocolate matcha from Blank Street?”. In an instant, divorce papers are on the table. You're calling your lawyers. The daydream has died before it even had the chance to bloom: You’ve contracted the ick.
Now what is the ick? I describe it as a cancerous cell that can mutate once it inhabits a relationship or relationship to be. It can fester and grow and become the iceberg that sinks the ship. In my experience, once the ick has settled in, the crush doesn’t die, but its effects on you start to fade. You start noticing the individual behind the crush and not just the idea of him. He starts to become normal, and that is when the ick can metamorphose. He acts like a “Know it All” and ends up being in the wrong? ICK. He sizes up someone for a fight and loses? ICK. He posts a thristrap on tiktok? ICK. He thinks long and hard about his instagram captions? ICK.
These are the mild ones that sneak up on you early in the honeymoon period of a crush, situationship, or relationship. So you sweep them under the rug. You give him the benefit of the doubt, unaware that this cancerous cell has entered the lungs of your courtship. Then it starts to become an issue; the mundane starts to ick you out. For example, you guys are playing ping pong, the ball falls and he chases after it. He bends down and sticks his ass in the air to pick it up and is still unable to catch the ball: ICK. You’re at a theme park and you decide to ride a rollercoaster, you sit down on your seats and the operator comes over and straps him in and pulls tight on the seat belts: ICK. Or the worst one yet, when he says a joke that goes flat, so he says it again and it still gets no reaction: ICK.
Now, have I chased after a ping pong ball? Yes. Have I been aided in strapping myself into the seats of a rollercoaster? Yes. Have I repeated a joke that I thought no one heard just to be met with silence? Also yes. Does that make me a hypocrite? Yes. Does that make me evil? No, and I'll tell you why.
The ick is a piercing of a facade, of a dream. It goes against the idea you made of this individual, and therefore it is not anyone's fault but your own (in most cases). However, it is also involuntary. In my experience, one does not conjure up an ick, it is simply contracted, and once contracted, it is difficult to shake off. However, it is also (in most cases) a very shallow habit. Your expectations were simply not met, and those expectations were placed by you. So unless this guy is the Devil Incarnate or Gaston himself, show him some grace, he is only human after all. But take into account that the ick never lies…
Interpret this advice to your own liking, once you’ve contracted the ick, the ball is in your court.
Here are some of my friends and I’s ICK list (if you tend to be sensitive please stop reading here. We acknowledge that some are unfair):
When he tries to show off his watch (he borrowed it from his dad) in a picture
When he sends streaks
When he has no rhythm when he dances
When he thinks he's hot but looks like a lesbian
When he’s scared of cats
When he listens to Travis Scott and only Travis Scott
When he knows TOO much about women’s fashion. The closet is glass
When he carries his food in a lunch box “mawa3eed el akl ya man”
When you turn him down and he says “I only talked to you cause I was bored”. YUCK
When he pretends to have a lisp
When he walks barefoot on Hacienda beach
When he wakes up, smokes, has lunch, smokes, has dinner, smokes, sleeps and repeats
When he drives too slow
When he has multiple private stories and avidly posts on them
When he's in a celebrity’s comment section
When he jumps in concerts
When he has a finsta
When he has a saksooka
When he orders coffee with oat milk
When he has snap plus
When he slurps his spaghetti
When he listens to Little Mix
When he drinks matcha
When he sends a gym mirror selfie while flexing, so you tease and say “stop flexing” and he replies with “you think this is me flexing?” with a wink face emoji. YUCK!
When he runs with a backpack on
When he says he's 6 foot but he's actually 5’11
When he has his snapchat in his instagram bio
When he snaps back with a beautifying filter or only half his face or the corner of it
When his role model is Andrew Tate
When he uses emojis during a fight
However, there is a counteract to the ick: love. Love blinds and therefore if you truly love him, the ick becomes a quirk and a quirk is endearing. But for the rest of us girls who haven't reached their lover girl era yet, the ick is freeing, so take this list and add to it and make it your own. The ick is universal <3
By Malika Elshorbagy
Published May 3, 2024.