Woman Discovering 'New Ick' on Couples Vacation Has Internet in Stitches

Long-term relationships require vulnerability... but not too much, one woman warns.

A viral video posted by TikTok user Sophie (@sophie.wheelerr) revealed a "new ick": her boyfriend being unable to get out of the sea due to oncoming waves. His struggle was palpable in the 40-second video, which Sophie found unattractive—and hilarious. Since the video was posted on April 11, it has received over 450,000 likes and nearly 3,000 comments.

"New ick unlocked: Boyfriend can't get out of the sea," she captioned the video. "Wasn't far off [from] running in to save him."

Sophie revealed that the couple was vacationing in Mexico when she recorded the video, which shows her boyfriend trying to get out of the sea as he repeatedly gets knocked down by incoming waves. Eventually, the water washes him up to shore and he is able to stand up and walk to the beach. In the comments, Sophie wrote that the lifeguard was whistling presumably to get him out of the water.

Many viewers in the comments empathized, but not with Sophie. Many said they knew the struggle of trying to get out of a very active ocean.

"I feel his pain," @alyssa.brooke13 wrote. "I consider myself a good swimmer but when I went to Mexico, I started to panic a bit in the water. At one point I thought I never was going to get out."

"I've had this happen in Mexico," @katiegunn4 wrote. "My biking pants were getting filled with sand. It was horrific. I thought I was dying."

"Seems most people don't know how strong the ocean is. Yeah, he's making a mistake not timing his exit right, but if you try to fight the ocean, the ocean wins every time," @midtoker wrote.

Some did side with Sophie, though, stunned at the lack of fight her boyfriend displayed in the face of the waves.

"The fact he just stood fidgeting with his glasses while it was calm sent me into a rage," @batsaidsmellyoulater wrote.

What Is 'The Ick'?

Sophie's use of the "ick" might confuse those who aren't up to date on the latest dating lingo. Put simply, "getting the ick" means getting a sudden "cringey" feeling when a romantic interest does something that puts you off.

"'The ick' is...a very strong gut reaction, either to the mannerisms of the person or the way they behave," Gurpreet Singh, a relationship counselor and psychotherapist, said in an article for Cosmopolitan. "It could be that you've picked something up in their value system that's completely different from yours; the way they laugh or tell a joke might completely irritate you, or it could even be just their look or smell."

Singh said that getting "the ick" is not necessarily the romantic interest's fault—it might just be "the way they are" that irritates their partner.

Some commenters on Sophie's video didn't understand why she got the "ick", but it doesn't necessarily matter.

"The way the ocean just delivered him at the end," @borris226 wrote. "But he got where he needed to go. That's all that matters."

Newsweek reached out to @sophie.wheelerr for comment via TikTok.