I’m Grateful to All the Men Who’ve Given Me “The Ick”
They showed me it was time to end our relationship
I remember the first time I caught the ick. My college boyfriend was modeling the pair of boxers I’d just bought for him. I thought he’d look sexy in the briefs. Instead, his legs looked spindly, and his chest, concave.
Why had I never noticed this before? This guy was now proudly displaying himself like he wanted me to rip those boxers off him and drag him to bed. But I only wanted to run in the other direction.
I’d caught the ick, and that was it for us.
I graduated college and started dating another man. I caught the ick again. It happened after glimpsing him from behind. It wasn’t like I hadn’t ever seen him from that angle before — we’d been dating for three months. But suddenly, the same compact, muscular body I’d once found so attractive made him look like a gnome.
I knew I couldn’t date him anymore. The ick had infected me.
It happened again a few years later with a guy I believed I was truly in love with. He was five years younger than me, and I convinced myself the age gap didn’t matter.
But then, while eating lunch together at a buffet restaurant, he decided to take off his shoes — like, he was barefoot as…
