We've all heard the word, but there's a few reasons why women sometimes get 'the ick' when it comes to men, according to an expert - and why it should be listened to.
It's something most people dread hearing from someone that they may be seeing or dating, and maybe you've seen the word being thrown around on various social media channels.
An 'ick' can be defined as 'a feeling of disgust or aversion', which is aimed at something or someone, but often in the dating world, this is triggered when a person carries an action out that essentially puts the other one off them for good.
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It's an odd phenomenon that has probably been going on for decades, but it has risen to prominence since being given a name.
You may have seen some ridiculous ones online, with some men often thinking that they have little hope at finding a partner with all of these conditions that need to be met.
However, sex expert Louise Perry has explained exactly why women get the 'ick' when appearing as a guest on the Diary of a CEO podcast with Steven Bartlett.
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In the YouTube video, Perry acknowledged the 'ick' term and that it is more prominent among women, before Bartlett told the story of a friend who was asking for his advice on a dating app despite him never being on one before.
He said that a profile of a man popped up on her phone that Bartlett described as 'really good looking', but his friend pointed out a fatal flaw.
He said: "I was like, what a great guy and she said, 'no, he's got boxes on the wardrobe behind him', I was like this guy is like, perfect, he's like an action figure, but because he had cardboard boxes on the wardrobe behind him, she was like 'agh'."
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Bartlett said it was 'bizarre', as no guy he knows would do the same if the shoe was on the other foot.
Perry then explained: "Might they do that for a woman they were deciding whether to marry? Do you know what I mean?
"Men tend to have two tracks - there's the woman I'd have sex with and there's the woman I'd marry, and they're different categories."
She revealed: "Maybe what it's showing (the cardboard boxes) is you're messy, disorganised or not very grown up."
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Bartlett chimed in, suggesting that maybe he was living at someone else's house, to which Perry agreed: "(Maybe they) don't have much money, maybe she's looking for cues of being really long-term - a good bet."
The host then linked it back to his guest's prior point about an evolutionary principle, which she also said was 'the sensible thing to be doing'.
"I think icks should be listened to generally, don't you think?" Perry said.
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"I think our bodies often know, they're often sensitive to little cues that we might miss consciously."
Bartlett didn't seem to fully agree, as he felt that some icks are getting a little out of hand, citing one he heard about a man pulling out a velcro wallet on a first date, which they laughed about together.
Topics: Social Media, YouTube, Sex and Relationships, Weird
Joshua Nair