She Said That I Gave Her “The Ick!” Now What Do I Do?

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

I (23/M) met a woman, “Sally” (21/F) on Hinge a little over two months ago. We messaged for a week, had some solid banter, and eventually decided to meet up.

Our first date was drinks at a rooftop bar — casual, low pressure. We talked for almost three hours. Sally laughed at my jokes, asked a ton of questions, and even mentioned a second date before we’d finished our first round. The second date was a cozy dinner at a cute Thai place and a long walk in the park nearby afterward. we walked around for a bit, just talking about life and music and weird things we did as kids. At one point, she grabbed my arm while laughing at a story I told. Not just a polite laugh but full-throated, head-tilted back laughing. We had a good-night kiss when I walked her back to her car – a quick one, not open-mouth or anything. I thought it was going really well.

The third date was different. We went to a trivia night at a bar with some of her friends. I knew that it was as much a test of will I get along with her friends as it was a date, so I was nervous, but I tried to play it cool. I made a few corny team name jokes and maybe got a little too into the game (I really like trivia and I knew some of the topics really really well — it wasn’t a big deal, or so I thought). I was trying my best to charm her friends as well as have a good time with her, but I got the sense that something shifted that night. She seemed a little distant by the end.

The next day, I texted her thanking her for the night and said I’d love to see her again. She replied with: “Hey, you’re super sweet, but I think I got the ick and I’m not feeling it anymore. Sorry.”

That was it. No explanation. Just “the ick.” What am I supposed to do with this information?

I’d always thought that term was kind of silly, like something people say on TikTok when someone chews with their mouth open or wears socks with sandals. But now I’m obsessing over what I did that triggered it. Was I too into trivia? Was I trying too hard to impress her friends? Was it how I ate my pad thai on the second date? Did I talk about my job too much? Was my job too weird? I keep replaying everything, searching for a moment where I crossed some invisible line from “charming” to “repulsive.”

I know people are allowed to lose interest; I’ve done it too. But something about being rejected with “the ick” just feels… harsh. Like I didn’t just not click, but I actively turned her off. It’s left me feeling weirdly embarrassed and kind of gross, like there’s something off about me that I didn’t realize was off-putting.

How do you deal with rejection like that when it feels so personal and vague? How do I stop spiraling into self-doubt every time I go on a date now, wondering if I’m about to “ick” someone else?

Sincerely,

Trying Not to Overthink It (But Failing)

What I’m about to tell you will feel like it doesn’t help, TNOI, but stick with me for a second: you will never know what you did that gave her “the ick”, nor is it something that you will be able to change. And this is important, because it doesn’t matter. Not a single bit. There is no need or reason to change it, because there’s nothing to change.

Here’s the thing: “the ick” is, at its core, the ultimate “it’s not you, it’s me”, without even being a polite fiction. When people talk about something giving them “the ick”, the trigger is always something that’s perfectly normal – even common – in the person who caused it, and the reaction is completely personal to the person feeling it. . There aren’t universal lists of what causes “the ick” because if it were universal, it wouldn’t be “the ick”; it would just be stuff that turns people off. Smelling bad – especially cases of seriously bad breath – is one example. So is being rude to service industry employees or never actually asking their date questions about themselves. All the things that people will list as giving them “the ick” tend to be about their responses to innocuous behaviors that most people would never think twice about. It’s just something that, for some reason, causes the person experiencing it to get that full-body shudder of “uggh” that blows away even the slightest bit of attraction.

The reason for it can be variable. There’re studies that seem to suggest that there’re psychological reasons for it, and some experts that believe that it might be a sort of emotional self-protection; the person’s Spidey-Sense is being tingling about something, but they don’t know what, so they blame it on something they can perceive about the other person. It could even be a matter of taste or past experience; someone might have bad associations after dating a beer snob, so if you order an IPA or you’re a little too enthusiastic about a nice hefeweizen on a hot day, they might cringe. Sometimes it’s even just a misunderstanding – one writer talks about how she got the ick from a guy because he seemed to be a stereotypical ‘softboi’, but realized that his behavior wasn’t just performance and posturing.

But the point is that, at the end of the day, there was something that they didn’t like or that bothered them and that was that. It was something common, normal and innocuous, and that was a turn off for them and them alone.

The important thing to realize is that this is ultimately a them problem, not a you problem. Sally got “the ick” because of something that had to do with Sally, not with you. Maybe it was legitimately something you did, maybe it was how she interpreted things, maybe she was just flailing around for a way to say “I’m not interested” in a way that precluded the possibility of your arguing with her about it. But the “what” doesn’t matter. Neither does the “why”. It just matters that she decided she wasn’t feeling it any longer and that was that.

It’s entirely understandable that you’re feeling confused and upset. As far as you knew, things were going well, so having the rug pulled out from under you like this feels sudden and confusing. It feels like you must have made a mistake somewhere for the change to be this sudden and this severe. I get why you want to understand and what to fix it… but there’s nothing to be fixed.

You’re not supposed to “do” anything with this information, simply because there’s nothing to be done. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that her issue was that she thought that your enthusiasm at trivia was too much. Bar trivia and pub quizzes are things you love. Do you really want to be dating someone who thinks that the thing you enjoy – or the way you enjoy it – is cringe? Would you rather try to repress liking the things you like or to like them in a more “respectable” way (for suitably subdued and unenthusiastic definitions of “respectable”) in order to date her, or would you rather date someone who, if she doesn’t share your enthusiasm or enjoyment, at least appreciates that you do? Would you honestly be happy continuing to see someone who gets a sour expression, rolls her eyes and purses her lips until they look like a cat’s butthole every time you answer a question in a party game?

Probably not. So, in a perverse and not-terribly-pleasant way, she did you a favor. She self-selected out of your dating pool and now you’re free to find someone who isn’t going to have whatever hangup she had.

It’s frustrating, I know. But it’s important to understand that this wasn’t something you did wrong. It’s not something gross or off-putting, it was just something that she didn’t like, for reasons that were unique to her. Maybe she could have sat with that feeling a bit and analyzed it and figured out what bothered her and whether it really bothered her or just brought something else up. Maybe she could push past it, or deal with the underlying issue. And hey, maybe she did sit down and wrestle with it, and at the end of the day, it was an issue that was too deep-seated to root out quickly. But – and I can’t emphasize this enough – that still means that it’s about her, not you.

The way you feel is understandable. It’s ok that it bothers you. Rejection for any reason kinda sucks. You can acknowledge that this hurts and also recognize that this was her weird and petty issue. It’s one of those annoying little parts about dating that we’re all subject to, and sometimes the only thing to do is to say “well that sucked,” shrug your shoulders and move on. I know you liked her, but I promise: there’s a lot of fine ladies out there, and they’re not going to have whatever hang-up she did. Women clearly dig what you’ve got, so keep at it. False starts mean little beyond freeing you up to find someone who is right for you.

Good luck.

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Dear Dr. NerdLove:

I’m a 30-year-old asexual woman who wants to find a partner. I’ve never been in a relationship or had sex or even kissed anyone, so that combined with my lack of attraction makes me nervous to date.

I’ve tried apps in the past and have mostly gotten responses from people I’ve either had to explain asexuality to who then unmatched with me or tried to tell me I’d change once I had sex with them.

I’m afraid that even if I find someone willing to understand asexuality they’ll be judgmental about my total lack of experience. My living situation also makes it hard to meet people. I live in a small Midwest town with a very small subset of LGBTQ people. The older I get, the more nervous I get that I won’t find someone who is understanding about my circumstances.

Do you have any advice for getting over this fear and learning how to date at an older age?

Sexless In Shawnee

Quick question, SiS: you mention that you’re asexual. What sort of intimacy do you like – or at least think you would like? Do you want someone to cuddle and possibly kiss with, but not have it go any further? Do you not feel sexual desire or have no interest in it but no aversion to it, or does any form of sexual contact squick you out?

I ask, because I’m a big believer in leaning into who you are and what you want and need. If you want to date and find a partner who’s right for you, then leading with being ace and what that means for you and for your potential partners is inherently a good thing.

Asexuality, after all, is a broad label, and it comes in a wide variety of forms and flavors. Some people are actively sex-repulsed, some people can take or leave it, some people feel sexual desire so rarely or infrequently that they’re functionally asexual and so on. If you can tell people what you want, what you might be willing to try and what is an absolute hard “no”, it will be easier to find potential partners who are actually right for you. The better you can describe and explain the size, shape and texture of what you want and don’t want, the better you’ll be able identify folks who are going to be cool with the kind of relationships you want and to weed out the ones who aren’t going to be right for you.

This is one of the reasons why I think being up front about it – in your dating app profiles, with people who ask you out or with people you want to ask out – is a good thing. Thinking about your identity as an asexual person, how you experience it and how it influences and shapes your desire for a relationship helps you find ways to describe it to others in ways that they’ll understand and find relevant. It also will help you get more comfortable with owning the label as being no big deal.

Part of your anxiety stems from the fact that you’re seeing your asexuality as something shameful or that you have to apologize for, and it’s not. Yeah, there’re a lot of people who might have opinions about it, ranging from the ignorant to the just plain wrong… but their opinions about it and what being ace “means” doesn’t make it a flaw in you or something that needs to be fixed. They can think that it’s a deficiency or a problem all they want. They can also take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. Being ace is just part of who you are – no more of a defect than, say, being someone who likes cilantro.

(Look, the stuff tastes nasty to me and I can detect it in parts per million so I can’t always just “eat around it” and… sorry I’m off track here.)

I think you will feel better if you treat your being asexual – and being open about being asexual – as a filter. Your being ace is a single detail about you, while how your potential beaus or belles respond to knowing you’re ace is going to tell you everything you need to know about them. And in that moment, you’re going to know who’s worth your time, who might be worth taking a chance on and who absolutely isn’t.

Some folks will be completely ignorant and stay ignorant, no matter what you tell them. Some will treat it as a challenge ­– as though you’re under a witch’s curse and only can be cured by He Who Wields The Magic Stick. These are people who have either self-selected out of your dating pool or who’ve waved their red flags proudly and told you to go ahead and toss them back.

Some people may dip out immediately as soon as they know that sex and sexual intimacy isn’t on the table – or is only on the table in very limited ways. This is fine. It’s going to be important not to take this personally or as a judgement on you. If someone unmatches with you after finding out that you’re asexual, then ultimately, what they’re doing is acknowledging that you’re just not a good match. That’s not the same as telling you that you’re undesirable or unloveable; it’s saying “it’s cool, we just wouldn’t work as a couple”, and that’s good. Yeah, it kind of stings – because nobody likes being rejected – but it’s an acknowledgement of who you are and who they are. It’s respecting that you and they would have needs either couldn’t be met, or that trying to meet them would be troublesome at best for one or both of you.

But there will be people for whom sex isn’t necessarily a priority in their relationships. There will be people who may not necessarily grok it fully, but can understand it and respect it. Some people may be cool with it, but will want a non-monogamous relationship so that they can get their sexual needs met elsewhere. If that’s something you can rock with, then great! If not… well, again, that’s just a sign that you two aren’t right for one another; no harm, no foul.

But the folks who are cool with it – who may even be some form of asexual themselves – can’t find you unless they know you’re out there. And they can’t know that unless you let them know.

So my suggestion is that you take a little time to think about what you do and don’t want and come up with a detailed list of your yes’, no’s and maybe’s, as well as the context for those maybes. Then play around with it and come up with a couple versions of the “here’s how you win with me” speech – the detailed, 12” dance mix that gets down into it and the elevator pitch, where you lay out the broad brushstrokes, with more information upon request. Put variants of the elevator pitch in your dating app profiles and have a version that you can rattle off if, say, you meet the himbo of your dreams at mini-golf or in Starbucks and they want to take you on a date.

Now, I’m going to be honest: this is going to mean that you’re going to get a lot more “no’s” than “yes’”. Asexual people are a very small percentage of the population; most people who want a romantic relationship are going to also want and expect a sexual connection. But as I said: this is why you lean into being ace; you want to filter them out as early as possible, so that neither you nor they spend time on a relationship that isn’t going to go anywhere. But being up front means that it will also be easier to find the people who are right for you.

Oh, and speaking of finding people who are right for you: another benefit of leading with being asexual is that the folks who are right for you are absolutely going to understand why you don’t have any dating experience. After all, you want people who are going to be understanding and compassionate. If they aren’t, that’s their flaw, not yours.

On the other hand, if someone is cool with your being ace but also thinks its “weird” that you haven’t dated or had previous sex partners… well, I have to wonder if they actually understand what being ace means. And even then, they’re telling you that they’re absolutely not someone you want to rock with, and you’re free to let them find a better match somewhere else.

But like I said: this isn’t something to apologize for, nor to roll out like you’re ashamed of it. It’s just who you are and part of what makes you uniquely you. Anyone who’s worthy of you will understand that and appreciate it. You deserve someone who gets you and appreciates all of you; don’t settle for anything less, especially when it comes to love.

You’ve got this, SiS.  

All will be well.