‘The Odyssey’ becomes a dating test on TikTok

A movie date can tell you a lot about a person. For some women who went to see The Odyssey, it may have told them too much.

Since Christopher Nolan‘s epic arrived in theaters, women have been sharing what happened when their dates encountered Odysseus, the Trojan Horse, and nearly 3 hours of Greek mythology.

The results have included questionable ticket purchases, confidently incorrect movie trivia, and at least one reaction to a plot development that has been public knowledge for roughly 2,700 years.

On Aug. 2, TikTok user @.finfan posted that her boyfriend “gasped when they came out of the Trojan Horse.”

“Is he still your bf?” one asked. Another offered a correction: “*Ex boyfriend.” Clearly, not all men are as obsessed with the Roman Empire as the internet led us to believe back in 2023.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Some commenters diagnosed the moment as a prime example of an “intelligence ick,” a loss of attraction triggered by something that makes a person question their partner’s knowledge or critical thinking.

People don’t necessarily mean IQ when they describe an intelligence gap in a relationship. As Vice explained, they’re often responding to differences in curiosity, communication style, emotional awareness, or whether they get each other’s references. A 2023 study of more than 3,000 Finnish and Dutch twin-spouse pairs found that partners tended to have similar levels of education. The researchers concluded that educational background and shared social circles both influenced whom people chose as partners.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Of course, knowing the story of the Trojan Horse is hardly a reliable measure of intelligence. It may simply come down to what someone learned in school or encountered growing up. But when a partner does not recognize something you assumed was common knowledge, that difference can suddenly feel much bigger.

The Trojan Horse was only the start of the ick conversation, though.

One woman said her date confidently told her The Odyssey was directed by James Cameron. Another discovered that her self-described “film bro” did not know what 70mm IMAX was.

Meanwhile, the man onscreen was making some real-life dates look worse. “I fear the bar has been risen when it comes to dating,” one creator wrote, referring to Odysseus’ (Matt Damon) determination to return to his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), after a decade apart.

The specificity of these complaints is funny, but they are circulating at a time when many women already feel exhausted by dating.

A 2025 study found that 80 percent of women reported experiencing some level of dating-app burnout, compared with 74 percent of men. Respondents blamed the difficulty of finding a connection, disappointment, rejection, repetitive conversations, and endless swiping.

Still, one ick does not necessarily mean it is time to end the relationship. An awkward comment or missing piece of movie knowledge may be harmless, especially if everything else is going well. Nevertheless, the “ick can also save us a lot of time in simply giving small flags of general incompatibility,” writer Kitty Winks wrote for Mashable back in 2023.

Icks can also be influenced by internet dealbreakers — kind of like these. A 2022 study found that 35 percent of respondents had been influenced by icks they encountered online. So before sending a date on his own odyssey home, it may be worth deciding whether the ick is yours or TikTok’s.