Is It Possible To Recover From The Ick? 6 Women Share Their Dating Stories

Ahh, the dreaded 'ick'. A relationship killer. An overthinker's worst nightmare. Those unfamiliar with the term certainly won't be unfamiliar with the phenomenon, as we've probably all experienced the ick to some degree. Your partner or the person you're seeing does something mundane that throws you for a loop, sending you down a disgusted or cringe-filled spiral until you can't stand them anymore.

"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," reads Urban Dictionary’s definition of the term. And it's certainly not uncommon, either. On TikTok, the hashtag #ick has over 2.5 billion views, with users from around the world describing what gives them the ick.

Whatever causes the ick, it usually spells the beginning of the end of a relationship. But it doesn't have to be a death sentence, as we discovered. Read on to hear how six women recovered from the ick in their relationships.