Modern love in India means st(ick)ing it out

The television series Nobody Wants This has people believing they need to make peace with the annoying things about a potential partner to give happily-ever-after a shot. But is it that easy to get over an ick? Or to compromise to let a romantic interest in?

The plot of the cult Bollywood hit Jab We Met (2007) could perhaps have gone another way, had it been made in 2025: Aditya (Shahid Kapoor) might have caught the ick for Geet’s (Kareena Kapoor Khan) relentless chattering, instead of finding it charming. Similarly, in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023), Rani (Alia Bhatt) finds Rocky’s (Ranveer Singh) disruptively flamboyant Punjabi energy a bit much—until, of course, she falls for him. 

In both films, what could’ve been a dealbreaker turns into a defining trait of love. Small things that, if you zoom out, you might just learn to live with. Episode six of Nobody Wants This (2024), the rom-com series that took over group chats in September 2024, is dedicated to ‘The Ick’. ,Joanne (Kristen Bell) catches the ick—a term for instant disgust—when Noah (Adam Brody) shows up to meet her parents wearing gym gear under a blazer he calls a “sports coat,” hands her an aggressively large bunch of sunflowers, and says “prego” in a fake Italian accent. But Noah doesn’t flinch—he reframes it as self-sabotage. One line seals it for Joanne: “I’m on your side. I can handle you.” 

IRL, it isn’t that easy to overlook such behaviour. But the ever-evolving dating glossary has made space for a new term: “sticking,” where people actively try to get over their icks to stay in the game. 

What is an ick? 

Urban Dictionary added “ick” to its lexicon in 2017, describing it as “something someone does that is an instant turn off.” While this was right after the term had made its way into the reality dating show Love Island, versions of it have been around long before. From Sex and the City’s tiny turn-offs to   Schitt's Creek’s (2015-2020) viral “Ew, David,” the idea of being suddenly repulsed by a crush is far from new. 

Sometimes, however, feeling the ick is instantaneous. Mumbai-based actor and creator Kevin Zingkhai, 27, recalls a date who suddenly adopted a fake accent—just when he introduced her to a friend. “It's worse because I knew she doesn’t speak like that,” he says. Her defence? “I grew up watching too many shows”.

Zingkhai, who admits to getting the ick when dates wear unblended foundation or chipped nail polish, adds,  “But you can’t tell a girl her make-up isn’t done right. That could break her confidence.” Another ick for Zingkhai? A date who gets  drunk too quickly. Or someone who complains about sore feet at a four-hour-long techno gig: “Fashion over comfort isn‘t a thing in such situations. And why should I suffer because she couldn’t make smarter shoe choices?” 

A February 2025 study found that 42 per cent of daters stopped seeing someone after getting the ick, while 26 per cent called it quits immediately. 

Is there logic behind icks?

For some, an ick can flag emotional dissonance or intuitive mismatch.  New Delhi-based entrepreneur Srishti Khera, 35, recalls a date who kept biting his long, dirty fingernails—and then told her she was “too fat”. Another one barely listened when she spoke. “By your late 20s, you should know the value of effort. Otherwise, it’s a complete waste of time,” says Khera.  

Psychotherapist Dr Chandni Tugnait explains: “Psychologically, an ick is less about the action itself and more about what it triggers: discomfort, embarrassment, or a projection of deeper fears. It often reflects internal standards shaped by culture, childhood, or past relationships. Having said that, people have their non-negotiable quirks they simply can’t overlook.”

Neuroscience backs this up. Mirror neurons, threat detection, and emotional regulation all play a part. “If the action clashes with your personal values, expectations, or identity, your brain flags it as a mismatch. It can also be rooted in subconscious defense mechanisms. The ick may be a way for the brain to self-sabotage intimacy due to fear of vulnerability or past trauma,” adds Tugnait. 

For Vasavi Sinha, 35, a corporate marketer in New Delhi, the ick arrived when a Hinge match liked all her Instagram photos, wore a three-piece suit on their first date, corrected her cutlery etiquette, and insisted on dropping her home—despite her discomfort. She blocked him, but he continued texting her via random numbers. 

Another trigger? A man who consistently dodged paying his share on dates. Sinha, who once altered her lifestyle to accommodate a financially insecure ex-husband, has stopped compromising. “It’s so easy to ask a woman to downgrade her lifestyle. But if a woman asks a man to upgrade his, she gets tagged a ‘golddigger’ and ‘too ambitious,’” she says. “Princess treatment doesn’t exist for women because men have entered their princess era. But money matters to women who are so attached to financial independence; they know everything hinges on it, and have fought hard to not be at the mercy of a man who might drag her to hell and not bring her back,” adds Sinha. The ability to act on an ick, argues Sinha, is also about agency—especially for Indian women, long taught to adjust.

“Icks could have stemmed out of years of frustration for women who have always been subjected to adjusting to everything in a patriarchal society. But people have taken it a step too far,” says Zingkhai. “A lot of men, as long as their male friends don’t make fun of the woman they are with, are okay with a lot of things. The problem is, men pick on physical traits and crack jokes mercilessly. And icks are formed,” he says. 

Meanwhile, when women speak up, they’re labelled as entitled. “Having an ick and having the ability to act upon it gives women agency over their own lives. In a society that will anyway fall back on old ways of having to get married, it’s defiance. Not like the arranged marriage market isn’t shallow: People still get turned down for having a crooked nose. It’s just accepted because four people are saying that versus one woman pointing it out. In which case, she will just be tagged ‘entitled’. Just like how it’s okay if male members of a woman’s family ask about the potential groom’s salary, but the woman will be rejected for even asking that question,” says Sinha. 

Sociologist Shambhobi Bagchi notes that gender, class, caste, and queerness all intersect here. “There is still an overwhelmingly large number of people expected to do something just because they belong to a minority, including women, who are still expected to ‘settle’ in a relationship, along with the onus on the bride to move in with her in-laws and husband. Given that we are in a heteronormative society, the minorities have a greater burden on them.”

Unsurprisingly, the ick gap is real: a February 2025 study in the United States found that 75 per cent of women experience the ick, compared to the 57 per cent of men. 

No one is perfect, even the “love of your life”

That same study also found that 32 per cent of daters stuck around despite an ick. A 2025 survey by dating app Plenty of Fish found that 36 per cent of individuals were actively trying to not run from the ick. 

Musician Anand Bhaskar, 43, admits at one point, he got the ick from people who texted “lyk” instead of “like”: “Getting over icks is about being more open-minded about people and looking beyond your first judgement of things. Besides, even I have icks, so whoever is dating me will have to make peace with them,” he says.

Bhaskar got over it when he realised grammar depends on exposure and privilege. “Plus, when I use abbreviations, the younger generation understands me better,” he adds, saying he was the one to adjust more in his previous relationship. “In my 20s, I was a loudmouth who would pick up fights. Several women told me that I am an idiot. With time, I worked on it, because they were right,” reflects Bhaskar, who still leaves jars open and not in their right spots, and forgets to mop the bathroom floor after a shower—ick-inducers he admits he’s still working on.  

Zingkhai, too, has softened with time. Once irritated by a messy partner, he now cleans his space daily. “I like my current partner a little too much. Plus, she also gets the ick from the way I walk. If she can live with that, so can I [with her ick-inducing behaviour]. Adjustment is necessary in any relationship. No one is perfect. Not even ‘the one.’” 

Even small annoyances, like chewing loudly, can be managed—Sinha once drowned it out with background music. Because the ick isn’t always a dealbreaker. Sometimes, it’s a dialogue. “As long as one person’s agency is not too harmful and the other person can work on it, it’s okay to make the adjustment,” says Bagchi.

There are two types of icks: the deeply ingrained and the sociological conditioning, like an aversion to certain smells. “A person who isn’t accustomed to it won’t like how a fish market smells. Or the pungent smell of certain foods. That’s because there is a distinction of odour that is bad that’s conditioned in people. But judging something immediately doesn’t work, and only makes a person miss out. But this is more difficult to get over than something that isn’t so deeply rooted in people,” says Bagchi. 

The second kind emerges when something doesn’t align with the social and cultural augmentation of the perfect partner. “If that inspires the ick, it needs to change. People should push those limits and try to be more inclusive,” she adds. 

Sticking because of the loneliness epidemic

The willingness to adjust isn’t necessarily a sign of greater emotional maturity or long-term thinking. It doesn’t always stem from becoming more open-minded or focussed on long-term compatibility versus superficial issues. It’s often a survival instinct disguised as open-mindedness. “People are getting over their icks because of the negatives of social media as well as capitalism, which leads to isolation and loneliness. People are rejecting that isolation with [choosing] partners at the price of forgoing the little things,” says Bagchi. 

A November 2023 World Health Organization study labeled loneliness a global epidemic, with at least 10 per cent of adolescents and 25 per cent of older adults reporting persistent isolation. Closer home, Ipsos’ 2021 global survey found that 43 per cent of urban Indians frequently feel lonely. 

With most interactions reduced to screens, the need for emotional intimacy hasn’t vanished—it’s only intensified. “Yet, human beings want someone they can speak to on a regular basis on an intimate level,” says Khera. “So, people are zeroing in on their red flags and rejecting them. Especially given the Indian context, which has seen enough criminal acts happen in marriages, including dowry. People aren’t settling for the bare minimum, but they aren’t going out of their way to find the best for themselves. Because people are dating in survival mode today,” says Khera. 

In this context, the ick becomes negotiable—especially when the alternative is solitude. “Adjusting to icks is just a healthier form of adjustment because these aren’t dealbreakers, but first-world problems,” says  Zingkhai. “A person has an issue with a potential partner’s baldness—there’s hair transplant for that.”

In a dating landscape fraught with scams, ghosting patterns, and emotional fatigue, even the smallest details can stick. But for many, choosing to stick it out might be the most radical—and realistic—form of love there is.

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