madyush

Lol, this comment perfectly embodies the pretentiousness of a mediocre person trying to sound smart.

That is a very condescending view of women, typical of male feminists. It's funny how weak, incapable men constantly view women as completely incompetent and incapable of making decisions for themselves, and therefore at the mercy of those evil attractive men, and of course, the only reason the women like these alpha type men is because they get manipulated and they're too stupid to shake it off.

In the book she was pretty much the same, except in the book it made sense, because the ML was absolutely terrible, and treated her so bad the entire time, never really showed any care for her until they broke up, and also, in the book they were just friends with benefits for the first 4 years, he didn't call her his girlfriend, and he didn't introduce her to his friends either, so her having no confidence in their relationship, keeping him hidden and at arms length and never telling him anything made sense there.
I don't know what the drama writers were thinking. They improved Luke massively, he is so much better in the drama, but they never changed Flora, so in the drama she looks like she is the horrible one.

You sound like a miserable person, please seek help.

It's ok, I've survived much worse than a couple of disgruntled online comments :)))
I do have to say though, this is probably the most lively comment section I've ever seen on mydramalist. People are fired up

@11304491 And even the dating website situation: When you sign up on a dating website, even if it's just a fake account to help your friend, you should absolutely inform your boyfriend ( Hey, if any of your friends see me on a dating app, don't worry, it's a fake account, just to help my friend).
And then, she did him wrong as an investor in the app. Once she realized that they were actually using her account to chat to real men, she should have absolutely apologized to him. That is actual fraud. And not only was it inappropriate towards him personally, but he had also brought in other investors. Imagine the position this puts him in with those people if they found out the app was engaging in scamming people.
And then let's take those poor bastards, who thought they were actually talking to a real woman. Would you like that to happen to you and to be scammed that way? Even if she had not talked to them herself, if someone had involved me in a scam like that, I would have felt really bad. But we never see any of those feelings from her. She didn't look like she was feeling bad for the people who were scammed, and not for Luke either. She was just sad that he got upset with her. Again, the focus is purely on herself.

It's not about intentionally hurting him. You can hurt someone without wanting to. She was disrespectful and inappropriate in her behaviour on multiple occasions and never considered any of her mistakes or apologized for them afterwards.

She never introduced him to her friends, even though he did introduce her to his friends. She never consulted him before having dinner with her ex ( Yes, that is absolutely something you should do when you are in a relationship, and if you don't you are a major asshole). She didn't even tell Luke beforehand, she just sprung it on him when the guy was already there. And then once the guy was there she didn't even introduce Luke as her boyfriend. ( Keep in mind, when the equivalent happened with Luke, and his friend showed up at his apartment, he made it clear that he hadn't invited the friend there, immediately introduced Flora as his girlfriend, and then explained the background of the friendship to Flora, to reassure her. And this wasn't even an ex-girlfriend, she was just a childhood friend)
Afterwards, at dinner she was clearly getting uncomfortable when she saw that her ex still has feelings for her. And still she didn't set up a clear boundary by telling her ex she is in a new relationship. Which gave the guy leave to think it is ok to show up to her hotel room at night. Then because she hadn't introduced Luke as her boyfriend, Luke had no authority to kick the guy out of the room. So he was forced in this stupid situation of spending the night guarding her while her ex was looking after her. And in the morning she didn't even give either of them an explanation or apologized for her behaviour or for getting drunk. She just snuck out like she had just had a threesome.

While she didn't mean to hurt Luke, these are all hurtful patterns of behaviour, and that's just one example, she has plenty of blunders like this, getting into them would take all day. So, yes, he says mean things to her, but afterwards he always thinks back on his behaviour, acknowledges his mistake and tries to improve his behaviour. We never see that with her, she is so focused on her own feelings, she never stops to consider how her behaviour might have hurt him.

And this is why I say she has the emotional maturity of a 5 year old. She is so involved in her own emotions, she never stops to consider his, or the consequences of her actions.

I don't think in a situation like that it's a problem if you hug a friend of the opposite sex. I think the hug itself is totally understandable and ok. However, what makes this inappropriate is the whole context around it. This isn't just a random friend, it is her flatmate. A flatmate that she never introduced to Luke, and never introduced Luke as her boyfriend. These are things that one should absolutely do, especially if you have a roommate of the opposite sex.

I know if I would have been with someone for 6 years and he would have a female flatmate that he never introduced to me (in 6 freakin years), and I don't even know if he told this woman that he has a girlfriend. If I would find him hugging that woman, I would be mad as hell, regardless of the reason for the hug.

Oh yes, he absolutely sucks in the novel. I really didn't want them to end up together at the end. And there it makes absolute sense for her to be insecure and not introduce him to anyone and all that. Because he is a total jerk who treats her like dirt that he occasionally has sex with.

I think it's good that they improved Luke in the drama, but they should have changed Flora as well. They kept her exact reactions and behaviours from the novel and the problem is, they just don't make sense in the drama.

I don't know, I don't really see any growth in her character so far, outside of her career. She's doing well there, but other than that, there is no emotional development. Like at all.
I think the writers did her character dirty, she deserved a better arc.

I think one of the reasons people are so quick to judge Luke for every little thing, while ignoring her issues is that he reacts in very visually striking ways. Most of the time the pattern is: She does something stupid or inappropriate, he gets angry for an absolutely legitimate reason, but instead of talking to her like a normal human being, he fires off some dumb insult and cutting remark. He calms down pretty quickly after that and apologizes, but people only focus on the mistake, because it's easy to be mad at the one with the mean face and angry words. Nevermind the fact that he had valid reasons to be angry.

Her mistakes are always dressed up in her insecurity. And every single time she does something inappropriate or hurtful, she just stands there with a sad face. So it's easy to overlook her mistake and think: Oh no, poor thing, she's so insecure. Nevermind the fact that she has NO reason at all to be insecure at this point.

Flora seems incredibly emotionally stunted. She has the emotional maturity of a child. The girl is so focused on herself all the time, what she is feeling, what is happening to her, yet she rarely seems to be curious about the feelings of the people around her, and also never thinks about how her actions affect other people. It's exactly what you would see in a 5 year old.
Her whole mindset is focused on herself, when it comes to others, the typical pattern is: act first, think never.

While Luke has his own problems, mostly getting angry quickly and reacting with cutting remarks, he also reflects on himself, apologizes, and actually makes attempts to understand her feelings and model his behaviour accordingly. He tells her to let him know when he is being an asshole, and to tell him what she needs from him. When she tells him she wants him to compliment her more often, he does that.

When have we ever seen the equivalent with Flora? She never asked him what he wanted or what bothered him. Never asked him what to do to improve her behaviour. Never acknowledged her mistakes or how they could hurt him.
So, while Luke is shown actually improving and showing care towards her, she remains exactly the same throughout the whole series so far, and is never shown actually caring about him or attempting to do things to correct her mistakes.

It's really interesting, in the novel, Luke was the total asshole, walking red flag you could spot from a mile away. Here, for some reason they decided to do the reverse and turn her into the asshole.

That's a very interesting statement. So, if her friend would have asked her to sleep with him to make him feel better, or kissed her, would that have been ok? After all, apparently there should be no boundaries.

The main problem for me is that she does not properly acknowledge Luke as her boyfriend. She didn't even tell anyone that they were dating, for ages, didn't introduce Luke and her roommate properly, she's already had weird incidents like this in the past, like going out to dinner with her ex without consulting her boyfriend first, not introducing Luke as her boyfriend when the ex came to pick her up, hugging her ex, her ex showing up at her hotel room. And she never even apologized for any of it, kept acting like he was in the wrong. And that creates a base for mistrust.

The reason why people didn't have a problem with Luke hugging his female friend is because Luke made it perfectly clear to his friend from the very beginning that he is in a relationship.
He introduced Flora as his girlfriend, so there were very clear boundaries set with his friend, and he gave Flora reassurance with regards to her.
Flora never did that with him, never explained anything to him, didn't introduce him as her boyfriend, kept him hidden away like he didn't exist, while she was off having dinner with her ex. So of course with this kind of history, this poor guy is going to be super insecure and triggered when he sees her with another man.

I get that everything Flora is doing is because of her own insecurities, but there is a limit to everything, and given how much Luke has done to reassure her about their relationship, from the very beginning, she has no excuses left for her behaviour. And being insecure is no excuse to constantly be an asshole to your partner.

I think it might be because his flaws are sharply visible, and it's basically just him saying mean things, while her flaws are a lot more quiet, and always dressed up in her insecurity. So people will easily overlook her being inconsiderate, or disrespectful to her partner, or just completely illogical, because she doesn't express it outright, it just comes out through her actions, and every time she just sits there with a sad face, so it's easy for people to find excuses for her bad behaviour.

I think from a logical standpoint they were both kind of stuck in their position. The ex was clearly on good terms with her, and he knew Luke was her boss but he didn't know anything else about him. From his point of view, Luke could have easily been a creep like Dony who was preparing to assault her.
So, he was definitely not going to leave, and Luke was definitely not going to leave his girlfriend alone in the room with another man. So I think, short of getting into a physical fight and causing a scene there was no way to get him out. And I think they both realised this and realised it's better for her if they just bear it and put up with each other until she wakes up.

Ok, neither of these characters is doing very well in this relationship, but I think it's good to analyze their behaviours side by side.

Luke is rude and frankly weird with her when she first starts working there, clearly an asshole. He becomes more professional afterwards and actually starts teaching her and giving her advice, although often in a blunt way.

He starts the relationship in this kind of vague, half fwb, half dating. He switches pretty quickly to boyfriend/girlfriend but never has a proper conversation with Flora about it to clarify it, just starts calling her girlfriend. This doesn't seem to give her enough confidence so she keeps treating it like a friends with benefits kind of arrangement, never questioning him about anything and keeping him at arms length whenever they are not in bed.

When she's sick he looks after her.
When his friend shows up unnanounced at his place he makes it clear he didn't invite her, calls Flora his girlfriend in front of her, explains to Flora what his background is with his friend, and that seems to reassure her.

When Alex is trying to poach her he gets irritated because he gave her two chances to tell him the truth, and she instead lied to him, and then he calls her cheap and obedient like a total asshole.. Afterwards he seems to try to understand where he went wrong and what she needs from him so he starts to compliment her and actually talks to her like a normal human being and a professional, and asks her to stay at the company. He then apologizes for the cheap and obedient comment and explains his thought process behind it.

He gets angry at her when she shows up beaten up and refuses to even tell him what happened. He makes her promise to call him first if she ever needs help in the future. She then springs a dog on him and insists that he has to bring him in his apartment or else she's leaving. He reluctantly accepts the dog and starts working on bonding with it. He asks her to move in with him and she refuses saying she prefers to live with her roommates. ( even though his place is much closer to work and she had previously said that one of the reasons she was considering leaving with Alex is because her commute takes 3 hours. So she's willing to change companies in order to avoid a long commute, but her roommates are so much higher on the hierarchy of affection than Luke is, that she would rather live with them and have a long commute than to live with him)

He introduces her to his friends who tell her it is the first time he introduced a girlfriend to them.
When the whole Dony thing was going on, he asks her specifically if he harassed her and she tells him no. Then he finds out from a company wide email that his girlfriend thought it was a better option to place herself as bait and get sexually assaulted, rather than ask for his help. He's angry and doesn't comfort her immediately. He calls her later that evening and waits outside her apartment until she's awake to talk to her and apologize.
He clearly feels insecure and asks her for the second time if she even views him as her boyfriend, she says yes and apologizes for keeping him in the dark, once again. He makes it a condition of him returning to work that she receive compensation in the form of stocks.

Then he finds out she has a profile on a dating app, a profile which has chatted with 45 men, and finds her at a matchmaking event wearing makeup and a nice dress. She makes a very poor attempt at explaining everything( it's a fake profile, so the app is basically scamming all of those poor bastards who thought they were chatting with an actual woman, and it's basically defrauding him and the other investors he found for her, making it look like the app is more popular than it actually is) , he dismisses her explanation in anger, and then she just pretty much just leaves it at that, making no further attempt to explain to him what she was thinking or intending, or to apologize.

She then makes plans to see her ex, does not consult Luke on this whatsoever, doesn't even tell him until the ex shows up to pick her up. She then introduces Luke as her boss, not her boyfriend and just merrily leaves with the ex, not even giving Luke the chance to talk to her or demand an explanation. She then feels uncomfortable seeing that her ex still has feelings for her but still doesn't tell him she has a new boyfriend. She then hugs the boyfriend in front of the hotel and Luke sees it. She then shows up in Luke's room, wanting to work, offers no explanation of apology for the ex situation. Luke then becomes a child and instead of telling her he's bothered by the whole situation and what the hell is she doing, he pretends that he's meeting his ex girlfriend too and Flora gets snappy at him.

Then, after the presentation, she proceeds to get black out drunk, and Luke has to carry her into her room. The ex shows up, apparently knowing her room number. Luke was only introduced as her boss, so has no standing to kick him out. He stands there all night, guarding her while the ex looks after her.

Then, the next day she basically sneaks out, and then after talking to her friend she gets into a panic because they're not married yet. So she meets Luke, and without offering up any explanation for everything that's happened over the past couple of days tells him she wants to get married and have a kid. He tells her no, and gives very clear reasons. ( the dating agency, the ex situation, he thinks she's too close to her roommate). She goes, ok, and leaves, thinking, oh well, he's unattainable.

I'm sorry, I know most of her behaviour comes from insecurity, but at this point, after everything this guy has done to adjust to her needs, and to reassure her, to be less sharp in his language, and to treat her like a proper girlfriend, all she's ever done is hide him, not introduce him to anyone, reject him, not telling him anything, not asking for his help, breaking her promise to ask him for help, not telling him she has a fake profile on a dating app ( Yes, that is absolutely something you should tell your significant other), arranging dinner dates with her ex.
Can you please tell me how is this guy the red flag in the relationship?

Very true. And she also never gives him his proper place. Luke's friend showed up at his place unanounced, Luke never invited her and Luke immediately clarified what Flora's position is in front of Zang Yao. He said she's his girlfriend and acted very affectionately with her, which clearly reassured her because she felt much better and wanted to continue her relationship with him after that. He also explained some of his background with his friend to her.

But the FL never did that with her ex. She planned to meet her ex for dinner and gave Luke absolutely no heads up. She never told the ex that Luke was her boyfriend, she just said he's her boss. So that's really rubbish behaviour. And then to make it all worse, the ex shows up at her hotel room ( which I still don't understand, why on Earth does he have her room number? It's not like hotels give out that kind of information to random people). And Luke has absolutely no standing to kick him out, because Flora never introduced him as her boyfriend. So she just forced him in this situation where he has to stand around all night to guard her and look at this guy taking care of her. And then she's surprised that he doesn't want to marry her and have a kid wit her. Cause who wouldn't want to experience these kinds of fun interractions for their whole life on repeat.

It looked to me like the dating app thing was right after the SA. When she talks to him on the phone she tells him that she'll thank him for his help in that situation, and she'll buy him dinner, but not that day because she has to help her friend at an event for the dating app. So it seems like it was right after.

And also, she wasn't drunk when that guy harassed her, but Kitty was. You'd think she would have learned something from that. And she herself encouraged the other girl at that dinner not to drink. To me it seemed like the drinking was just a big FU to the male lead, because she knew that he doesn't like it when she drinks

Also, celebrating your success by getting black out drunk and forcing the people around you to take care of you all night is stupid and selfish.

Yep, we all are 😂