Dear Roe,
I’ve met a wonderful man. After years of crap dates, false starts, commitmentphobes and ghosting, I’ve finally met a man who seems to really want to integrate me into his life early in dating (introducing me to friends and family, calling me his girlfriend) and is intelligent and sensitive. My issue is that, a few months in, I find a lot of aspects of his personality quite annoying – anything from talking too loud in restaurants to interrupting when I speak. The sex hasn’t been great but is improving as we get to know each other. I’m aware that because of things in my past (emotionally manipulative partners and harassment, borderline stalking from an ex) I can be quite avoidant, and that “getting the ick” is sometimes more about finding excuses not to be with someone. But how do I know where the line is between avoidance and genuine incompatibility? Just because someone is smart, respectful, and ready to commit doesn’t mean they’re right for me. At the same time, does doing things I find “icky” (but are wholly innocuous) mean they’re wrong for me? Should I accept that no one is perfect, or keep looking?
Let’s look to the philosophers for this one.
In Witnessing Subjectivity, Kelly Oliver writes that “love is an ethics of differences that thrives on the adventure of otherness”. In Alain Badiou’s In Praise of Love, Badiou describes the basis of love’s starting and flourishing as the “encounter between two differences”. For Martha Nussbaum, real-life love requires an embracing stance, and saying yes “with a mercy and tenderness that really do embrace the inconstancy and imperfection of… real-life love”.
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Or as columnist Dan Savage puts it, the price of admission for having true love is embracing that other people are different from you. And along with all the ways that fact makes life more rich and beautiful and exciting and magic, it also fills life with people who talk too loud, who interrupt, who chew with their mouth open, who walk around after a shower only naked from the waist down (the least dignified form of naked) – or whatever their particular constellation of annoying little differences is.
The price of admission that they pay is embracing that you also are different to them, and accepting all of your annoying little differences.
I will admit that I find the idea of “the ick” quite emotionally immature. I promise that I’m not just picking on you – I have been ranting about this for the past couple of years as the term has been popularised on social media. Commonly understood as a point where your attraction to someone dies or turns to one of disgust, people claim that the ick is an unconscious, unavoidable reaction that there’s often no coming back from.
In my mind, however, people listing off all the tiny, irrelevant, human reasons they use to discount potential romantic partners feels lacking in empathy, self-awareness and perspective. Icks can often feel deeply embedded in gendered norms, as straight women list off men using umbrellas or lip balm or getting emotional as inspirers of “the ick”, while straight men list women eating a normal amount or enjoying a beer or sitting with a wide-legged stance being an irredeemable turn-off.
There are also ungendered icks – an unusual laugh, the awkwardness of chasing runaway coins, an unflattering outfit, licking the yoghurt off the lid – but what they have in common is a projected shame around being seen as human, imperfect. When we judge other people for being awkward or graceless or dorky or flawed, we’re also criticising ourselves by proxy. What are the trivial expressions of humanity that we believe make us unlovable and immediately disposable?
Icks can also, as you are aware, be self-protective mechanisms – ways of pushing away people and justifying our fear of real connection. Instead of admitting that we fear being vulnerable and liking someone, we can create a tiny but inarguable reason to dismiss them. Self-protection and projected shame can go hand-in-hand: the moment we see someone we like having a flawed moment, we become acutely aware of our flaws. Rather than lose control and reveal ourselves as imperfect, we push them away and trade them in for someone new, with whom we can start the cycle of perfect, early-days performing, where we remain shiny and flawless until the ick cycle starts again.
Or we could embrace that, as Tim Kreider once wrote, “if we want the reward of being loved, we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known”. We could dig deep and put forth our most flawed, awkward, clumsy, coin-chasing, yoghurt lid-licking selves – and believe that we are worthy of love as we are. We could believe that our partners will embrace our humanity, and our differences, and forgive us a million times over for our irritating habits – and we could commit to forgiving them a million times over in return.
I am sure your partner talking loudly and interrupting you is annoying, and if his interruptions feel patronising and disrespectful rather than excitable and clumsy, then that’s not an ick, that’s an important value mismatch and you should leave. And if he is unkind or unethical or is treating you badly, or even just if the annoyances start to outweigh the good and you genuinely don’t enjoy being around him that much and your attraction is waning, then yes – break up with him and find someone you like more. But if he treats you well and makes you laugh and is willing to work on your connection? Well, maybe just get more practised at saying: “Actually, I wasn’t finished” when he interrupts you. Maybe forgive a little more, knowing that he will forgive you for your annoying habits, too. Maybe stay focused on the big, important values instead of the tiny, trivial details.
I know you’ve been seriously hurt before, and I’m sorry. I’ve been there. I know it’s easy to believe that to keep yourself safe, you have to have your shoelaces tied, ready to run. But imperfection is not danger. Imperfection is vulnerability. I suspect that you’re scared of the vulnerability of loving someone, and being seen by someone – and ironically, this fear is making you a little bit emotionally unavailable. But that vulnerability is where the potential for real love lies, so you need to decide if you want to show up for it.
My partner has never hung up a towel to dry in his life. He is late to everything. He once inexplicably showed my philosopher-poet father a computer-animated redesign of a centaur, which was just a horse with a man’s arse. I write about sex in a national newspaper. My nose runs whenever I eat anything above room temperature. Any time I open my handbag, there’s a 50/50 chance a stray, matted hair extension will fall out of it. We have both been violently ill in front of the other. There are endless other embarrassing details about ourselves and our relationship that I would never dream of putting in print, and an endless list of reasons we could use to discount each other. We are both imperfect and strange and flawed and deeply annoying – and I have never been so happy in my goddamn life. The price of admission is worth it.
This man may or may not be the person for you. But see if you can hold space for his imperfection, his flaws; see if you can turn the ick into a crossroads where you choose to lean into the mortifying ordeal of knowing another and being known. Either you’ll find love or a lesson. Either will be invaluable. Good luck.
