We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about the icks that helped them get over an ex. Here's what people bravely shared:
1. "The creepy, smiley face he would make when he would rip a large fart. It was like he was a giant baby or something. Don't miss that."
—Anonymous
2. "My ex frequently sneezed into his hands and then wouldn't wash them, even when I asked/begged/pleaded with him to. He would get pissy about it, in fact. I got really sick both winters I lived with him. His friends were also elated when I moved in because there was 'finally' soap in the bathrooms. Excuse me???"
—Anonymous
3. "My ex had just moved into a new apartment when we started seeing each other, so a lot of our time was spent shopping for household stuff. When we were talking about the need for curtains in the apartment, he told me he had that covered. He took a flat bed sheet and some push pins and pinned the bed sheet to the wall to cover the windows. Looking back now, I'm not sure why I thought he would be a functioning adult when his apartment looked like a homemade evil lair."
—Anonymous
4. "My ex refused to tip. For the first month or so, we mostly went to museums, clubs, and the occasional coffee shop, so we were mostly paying for ourselves. Well, we spontaneously decided to treat ourselves to Olive Garden. This man was literally asking our poor waitress to move heaven and earth. When we went to pay, he said he would pay, which was nice. But, he didn't leave a tip. This woman worked extremely hard and made sure to do every little thing he asked, and yet he still refused to tip. So, in the end, I paid for the meal, and left a bigger tip than I could afford because I was so embarrassed to be with this fool."
5. "He had a deep, cartoonish laugh that sounded like 'hur hur hur.' It was horrible. I'm sorry; I know making fun of someone's laugh sucks because it's involuntary and it's the way they express joy. But oh my god. Why did it sound like that? I sometimes wonder if he did it on purpose because it was deeply unnatural."
—Anonymous
6. "The fact that she started washing only once per week."
7. "I was in an on-again-off-again relationship with a man. In retrospect, I was way more into it than he was. At the end, I spent a full weekend with him. He was drunk almost the entire weekend. I noticed that the alcohol made him smell bad and act erratically. Even though I was a big partier at the time, the amount he drank grossed me out, and the attraction dwindled immediately. I decided to end it after that weekend."
—Anonymous
8. "This man did not own any pillows, just various-sized stuffed animals. He was somehow surprised (and annoyed) that I asked for a pillow the one and only time I ever stayed over. He’s 30. I shudder whenever I look back on that."
9. "Realizing that he was not smart at all. It never hit me during the relationship, but afterwards, it did."
10. "His mom would bring his daily meds to him. Nothing wrong with the meds, just the fact that we were old enough to have our sex interrupted by his mother."
11. "He had a Hank Hill ass."
—Anonymous
12. "Looking back, I realize that I never, ever saw them brush their teeth."
—Anonymous
13. "How much he liked porn."
14. "Being so obsessed with Legos as a grown adult that we always had to rent a two-bedroom so he could have a playroom."
15. "He had started losing his hair when he was in his early 20s. By the time we were together, he had a pretty significant bald spot, and it smelled like stinky cheese every morning. It still grosses me out."
—Anonymous
16. "How messy he was, and how much of a mess he made our shared home. I especially don't miss having to wipe pee off the bathroom floor and facial hair out of the sink."
—Anonymous
17. "He couldn't read out loud. He used me being 'perfect' as an excuse not to fall in love with me. And, he wanted to be in the military. Bullet dodged."
—Anonymous
18. "While we were together, he took a test to see if he was a beta, sigma, or alpha male. I’ve also seen him eat spaghetti with a plastic butter knife. Both major icks."
—Anonymous
19. "He posted a picture recently on social media of his 'shoe wall' like it was a gallery. Over $50k in shoes. He would cry to me that he didn’t know if he was ever going to make rent, and then he would drop $700 on shoes without batting an eyelash. Sneaker heads are a different breed and definitely not for me. Financial security >>> sneakers."
20. "He became a devoted Disney adult."
—Anonymous
21. "I saw that the woman he dated after me is a Trump supporter. When we dated, he claimed to have very progressive values. He either lied about his values or doesn’t care if his partner supports things he (supposedly) finds abhorrent. Either way, that’s not the kind of person I’d want to be with."
—Anonymous
22. "He couldn't drive, swim, or ride a bike."
—Anonymous
23. "My ex had to have everything a certain way, which I didn't know beforehand. Sometimes, he would relent and compromise, but eventually, he would start to complain. When I used to miss him, I would immediately make myself think of this and wonder if his new BF is coping with the control freak that he probably didn't know about."
24. "My ex was best man at the wedding of a couple we'd known well. They had a super toxic relationship, and all I could think was, 'If that's his idea of love, it never could have worked out with us.' He also grew out a beard, and it looked horrible on him."
—Anonymous
25. "My high school ex-boyfriend and I were in touch intermittently throughout our 20s. I considered us friendly, although I definitely still thought he was THE cutest. I also thought he was smart and well-informed, and I liked talking politics with him. Cue the last time we hung out. We were talking about a complex sociopolitical topic, but we weren't agreeing on a certain point. Then, he said, 'I have a degree in law. I know what I'm talking about.' I was confused. When in the last 10 years had this man gone to law school? I think law school would have been a significant thing to mention all those times we had gone out for drinks."
"When I got home, I looked him up. Turns out he had a paralegal diploma, which is not the same as a full law degree. Now, I'm not trying to insult paralegals or even his knowledge of the law. It was just super icky to me that he: A) misrepresented himself to make himself seem more knowledgable than me to shut me down in a discussion, and B) lied so blatantly about something easily verifiable. I lost so much respect for him in that moment. Who knows what else he had exaggerated/embellished over the years? Why make up a lie about this? So unnecessary and corny."
—Anonymous
26. "We dated long distance for a while after he moved to another state. I was waiting him out, absolutely certain he would come around and see what we had. Instead, he moved across the country to be with a married woman who 'needed him.' I realized then that he was not the person I thought he was."
—Anonymous
27. And: "I was with my ex for six years, and we got engaged a few months prior to us breaking up. I was devastated, and for two years, I considered him 'the one that got away.' Our breakup was out of the blue. I never understood what went wrong, and he never explained why he left me. I had a chance encounter and ran into him two years after the breakup. We talked, and I found out he got married six months after we broke up. For some reason, that made me feel better about the breakup. Yes, most likely he was cheating on me, and that's most likely why we broke up, but at least I had a reason! However, that's not what killed my feelings."
"Weeks after I ran into him and found out he was married, he began DMing me, texting me at all hours of the night and day, sending me dirty pictures of himself, and kept trying to meet up with me. He cheated on ME with her, and now he was trying to cheat on HER with me. I sent all of the messages and pics to his wife and told her I would call the police on him if he refused to stop calling and texting me incessantly."
—Anonymous
Yiiiikes. What's an ick that helped you get over your ex? Tell us in the comments!
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.