Picture this. You’ve worked a long dreary day, rain spitting on your window. It hits 6 p.m. and you get a text from your significant other “what do you want for dinner”. Your man said he would cook, so out of the kindness of your heart you walk with him to the grocery store to keep him company in the rain. Two cute people on their way with their umbrellas walking down the street… NOT KNOWING THAT THE WORST PHYSICAL ACT IS ABOUT TO OCCUR. Your boyfriend’s umbrella flips up inside out due to the “uncontrollable” wind and he has to scramble to get it back to normal.
Yes, this happened to MY boyfriend of all people. I literally covered my eyes, because I knew standing before me was an “ick”. I physically couldn’t look at him struggle to get his umbrella right side down in the rain helplessly. I had to protect our relationship and quite frankly my freedom, because I didn’t want to let the ick shackle me down.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary the ick (noun) is a sudden feeling that you dislike someone or something or are no longer attracted to someone because of something they do. I know that’s right!! Please keep in mind that the ick has *range*. It can be watching a man chase after a tennis ball (ping pong balls hurt just as bad), having any flag hung in his room at the age of 28, saying that his favorite ~vinyl~ record he owns is by the edm artist/dj Flume, and lastly one of my favs is a man getting in a car accident during an Uber ride and getting sent to the hospital for him to be discharged from said hospital (now healthy) and getting BACK into an Uber ride to get home. The list is endless and ever so specific to the beholder.
I was recently reminded of these sentiments while watching Nobody Want’s This. An LA based show about love and friendship but mainly love which I enjoyed regardless of the lead being Kristen Bell (respectfully). There’s an entire episode about her catching the ick with her rabbi bf played by Adam Brody who is still so hot (respectfully). His character does the corniest things to impress her parents and she is so icked out she ALMOST breaks up with him. The entire episode is about her plight and if she could still like this man. In the end she realizes of course she loves him and letting the ick get to her was her form of self sabotage towards their relationship. Side note, she wasn’t Jewish and her bf’s family hated her, so she had bigger battles to fight than the ick in my opinion. Nevertheless she chose to overcome. Yayyyy :).
Here now lies the question we all have to answer, when is it worth overcoming the ick??
If you look again at the ick examples I wrote out earlier you notice a pattern or more so a bottom line in each. I believe that icks all are just the top layer to the meaty truth. The dermis to the core. A man having a flag in his room at the age of 28 hints to immaturity. A man’s favorite vinyl being electronic music makes you question someone’s taste in comparison to your own. Kristen Bell being cringed out by her mans corniness to her parents made her see what her truth was in running away from past relationships when she actually wanted to be in this one. To be honest I don’t have a comeback for the Uber to the hospital scenario, but just know that it really happened and the girl just flat out didn’t like him.
Icks are the surface level of something more. It’s an alert to your brain saying “you don’t have to keep liking this person if you don’t want to”. And it is up to you to decide your boundaries. It’s less about can you overcome these icks and more so can you overcome the perfect picture you painted of a person, your daydreamed up version of your significant other. No right or wrong answer here! That is the beauty of choice. You can kick someone to the curb for having Cheeto dust on their upper lip once and never look back, and you can stay with the Cheeto duster because you like… really like them and they make you happy ;).
For what it’s worth picking someone to date/be in love with is one of the wildest things to experience. It happens every day all the time, but it is actually so hard for me to wrap my head around. Someone outside of my family loves me? I sound so pick me right now, but I’m being sooo serious heheh. Even with my friends sometimes I just look around and think, these people actively decided that they like my presence??? Wild!
WE THE PEOPLE get to choose who we are icked by and THAT is powerful. We get to choose who we love (stars, sparkles, sugar honey emojis). So, can you overcome the ick? That’s up to you momma!
If you’re feeling frisky comment some of the icks you’ve experienced because generally they’re fun to yap about <3
Love yall!
Talk soon! xxoxox,
J
***Disclaimer: Ask Jeav’s does not allow you to stay in a relationship if you are being HARMED MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY. Peace and love.
This is how I learned Channing and Zoe broke up
the first two paragraphs genuinely had me in tears J