TikTok’s Obsession With Icks Is Ruining the Fun of Having a Crush

You know when a friend points out something unattractive, askew, or off about someone and you can't unsee it? In the 2026 dating world, the internet is that friend.Looksmaxers, airbrushed supermodels, and AI actors flood our feeds, warping the way we perceive the average person. I don't care how much jawline gum you chew, it is simply unrealistic to live up to modern internet standards of beauty. We've known this.Add in the dark side of #DateTok and it actually does feel like social media is changing our brain chemistry and perception of modern love and relationships. I've watched enough TikToks about men doing supposedly unattractive things that I sometimes wonder whether I would have found those things unattractive on my own. Would I really care if a guy ran to catch a bus? Or wore a backpack a certain way? Or posed for a photo with his hands on his hips? (Okay, admittedly, I would be turned off by the last one, sue me!).The internet has crowdsourced icks and passes them around like peanuts at a baseball game.The internet has crowdsourced icks and passes them around like peanuts at a baseball game, offering them up to anyone willing to buy them. Instead of discovering our own turnoffs, we're being handed other people's. And unlike that friend who occasionally points out something unfortunate about your crush, TikTok is available to do so 24 hours a day.Back in the olden days, aka pre-2010, you could go on a date with a guy and it would take roughly three solid dates before unloading his baggage. Today, you can know his job, college major, graveyard of exes, and potentially his mother's maiden name before you've even agree on a bar. Dating apps cut to the chase on nonnegotiables, like sobriety, dating goals, and politics, to name a few, and to an extent, I agree with this method of finding love because who has time to waste? At the same time, though, I fear this can sometimes make us say no too early, identifying what makes someone unattractive before the crush can even grow "talking-stage" legs.Throughout my dating rampage the summer and semester before I met my boyfriend, I tried the apps and did all the "right things." When I met up with one of the guys from the app, he said to my face, "Wow, you're so much prettier than in your pictures." Thanks, Romeo. As poorly as he delivered it, he had a point. Attraction doesn't always translate through a screen. Part of what makes someone so beautiful is witnessing how they move through the world. Their mannerisms, their voice, how they tell a story.My time on the apps was short-lived; I missed that middle-school feeling of knowing practically nothing about someone while already picturing our lives together. I imagined dating in my young adulthood as a cute guy asking for your number at a party or bar, followed by immediately wondering how he'd look alongside your family at Thanksgiving. Never mind that you don't know his last name.That's the fun of a crush: having just enough information to like someone and not nearly enough to know if you shouldn’t.I finally got that feeling back when I met my boyfriend on a school-organized trip my senior year of college. We didn't know each other beforehand, but I thought he was cute and curious. Without a dating profile to dissect or mutual friends to consult, I could simply enjoy getting to know him. And that's the fun of a crush: having just enough information to like someone and not nearly enough to know if you shouldn’t.But even meeting someone in person doesn't spare them from the internet's influence. On day four of the trip, I watched my now-BF dance with a group of strangers in public. Had I seen a TikTok of him doing that before meeting him, I might have scrolled right past. But by then, I'd gotten to know him, and found that same warm confidence and lack of self-consciousness charming. Which makes me wonder how many of my supposed icks are actually mine, and how many I've picked up from the internet.I'd like to decide what's unattractive about someone for myself, rather than arrive at a first date with a list of things social media told me to hate.Of course, I'm not advocating for abandoning standards or ignoring genuine red flags. But I'd like to decide what's unattractive about someone for myself, rather than arrive at a first date with a list of things social media told me to hate. Who knows? Maybe the very thing TikTok taught me to hate will be what I end up liking most.