I Need Romance 3 episode 11 - I Think Romance Got Lost on the Way To the Party.

Just doing a quick plug on my new favorite song from this OST.  Jo Jung Hee's Now and Forever is just the perfect song for this drama.  Feel free to listen as you read and enjoy the whole song that is starting to pop in and out of the drama.

 INR3 OST - Jo Jung Hee's Now and Forever 

I will be honest, I am so annoyed with these characters right now.  Watching Joo Yeon and her jerk of a boss attempt the most awkward and bordering on emotionally abusive relationship ever kept making me physically gag.  I know that she has never really considered herself in a relationship with Joo Wan (even though she totally is) and so it is not cheating, but my emotional connection to the show and its lead could not seem to separate.  Seeing her accept the horrible way he treats her as how adults should be in a relationship just made me ill to my stomach and i need for the story to move on or I am going to not be able to handle it.  That being said I am just warning you that I am going to move quickly on anything to do with Joo Yeon and her icky boss or else I will just spend the whole blog post listing words from a thesaurus that describe my feelings for him. Loathe ...... Abhor .......Detest ......Despise ....etc.

Before I am forced to deal with the love triangle I just wanted to touch back with pregnant BFF and her next door neighbor beau.  Can I just say that they are so adorable?  If you recall things were left with them being no longer hookups but each still feeling interest in each other.  Unfortunately there is one little growing baby blocking their happily ever after.  Now aware that she is his neighbor we see him continuing in his stalker ways (I seriously don't know why him being a stalker is so cute, but it totally is) by checking out her mail.  In that mail are a lot of flyers that you receive from companies if you are an expectant mother, but this info does not seem to sink into his brain yet.  She totally catches him rifling through her mail and they do an adorable mini fight resulting in him saying that she can't avoid him since if she moves he will just stalk her at work until she talks to him. Dragging her into his apartment he tries to convince her that they should continue dating. It seems that he is OK that she fakee her name, and even the lie about the age bothered him but does not matter since they are not interested in getting married.  When she remains adamant against them getting together the wheels in his head start working and he blurts out questions that are each more extreme "Are you a divorcee?  Do you have a husband stashed in your apartment?  He looks down at the baby formula mail and looks back at her looking like a light bulb had gone off in his brain.  She looks afraid as he asks "do you by chance have a child?"  Exasperated she storms out while telling him to listen to noona, they are over.  HAHAHA  I seriously can't get enough of them and their ongoing age jokes.  It is just so cute and funny.

Deep breath.... Lets get this over with (just warning you that it might not be very in depth since I want to get past this episode as fast as possible).  Poor Joo Wan is trying his best to not only be respectful of Joo Yeon's choices but still continue to be a presence in her life that is positive and supportive.  His zen like persona starts to unravel a bit when he sees her making such bad choices though and jealousy starts to take a toll.  It broke my heart when in a voice over he said: “I said I was happy for her.  That was what I said, but I wasn’t okay at all. I wanted to ask: Why wasn’t it me?”  I think we can all agree that 99% of the viewers are shouting the same thing at their TV's right now.

Unfortunately we now get the reality of what dating Tae Yoon entails.  Pretty much a huge amount of talking about work with the occasional "you look pretty" thrown in.  Yup that is right, no sweet glances, or romantic moments, just a generic pat on the head which she seems to lap up like it is the best thing ever.  Even when he gets her some earrings from a jewelry expo he had attended for work, he does not come out about their relationship and the earrings are taken by the whiny coworker.  I would just like to point out that he had no problems whatsoever letting the whole world and his coworkers know when he was dating Se Ryung so at least in my mind it makes this facade of a relationship ten times worse.  He even asks her to come over to his house "to work" which poor Joo Yeon thinks is going to be a make out session, only to be reprimanded when she shows up without her work notebook.  Personally I think constantly getting reprimanded by my boyfriend would put a damper on my feelings for the relationship, but our dense girl just smiles and accepts that she is in the wrong.  He takes her home and while she waits for a goodnight kiss, he just gives her that annoying smile (the one that used to look nice but now just makes me want to smack his face) and sends her inside.  Joo Yeon reflects on how her friends have told her that if a guy has not tried to kiss you by your third date then it means they are gay.  She says in her head that she knows he is not gay so why is he not kissing her.  BECAUSE HE DOES NOT LIKE YOU ROMANTICALLY AND HE IS A JERK!!!!!!!!!!!!

Walking away after the disastrous kiss that did not happen incident, Tae Yoon meets up with Joo Wan while he is bringing a huge five foot giraffe home for Joo Yeon.  Our poor hero does not come across as very mature as he tries to hide the giraffe behind his back.  HAHAHAHA  Tae Yoon just smirks and tells him that does he not know that Joo Yeon does not like that kind of silly thing.  Joo Yeon just glares and tells our resident jerk to start treating Shing Shing better.  Tae Yoon (still smirking, oh please someone punch him) asks if Joo Wan likes Joo Yeon which he answers immediately that yes he does like her and is not giving up on his love.  Unfortunately Tae Yoon does not take him as any sort of threat and after a few more snarky barbs walks away.  Dejected Joo Wan goes inside the house but at least is comforted when Joo Yeon goes nuts over how cute the stuffed giraffe is.  He refuses to give it to her asking if she thinks it is too childish, but she just grabs it and then he gives her giraffe and all a huge hug.

 Se Ryung, bitter over losing her toy........oops I meant boyfriend, to Joo Yeon is determined to make everyone suffer along with her.  As she tells Joo Wan in an earlier scene, she is always the type to break her toys rather than let someone else have them after her.  I guess this is true even as she becomes an adult since she is on the warpath to cause everyone pain.  She invites everyone from the home shopping company to a fancy party promoting some type of style/work related something.  She throws it in everyone's face that she is obviously on a different tier then her coworkers, schmoozing with the owner of the home shopping network and other stylists.  My personal favorite moment was when Joo Wan came in looking uber hot and was treated like the important celebrity that he is.  I think that both Tae Yoon, and to a lesser extent Joo Yeon, got a reminder that when it comes to being a mover and shaker, he stands above them and is not the little kid they treat him as.

Through a series a vague comments and hints from Se Ryung it comes out in mixed company (including the owner of the Shopping network) that she took the job with them because she was in a relationship with Tae Yoon.  She also did nothing to stop people from thinking that the relationship is ongoing and as you can imagine Joo Yeon is hurt (especially since her jerk of a boyfriend says nothing).  Se Ryung confronts Tae Yoon and tells him that she hopes she enjoys her parting gift to him.  She say that she hopes he truly gets the full joy of rumors destroying what he loves.  That when Joo Yeon starts to feel insecure and the rumors eat away at what they have, that he will think back to what he did to her.  Then seeing Joo Yeon coming up behind him she asks "what do you see in her, that simple girl.  Are you dating her because she is easy to control? (DING DING DING We have a winning answer).  She continues on with her hurtful words until Joo Wan tells her to stop.  He grabs Joo Yeon and attempts to get her out of the room before she cries.  Tae Yoon also grabs her hand and tells her to stop, and just when you think that he is going to step up FINALLY and be the boyfriend, he tells her that their boss is here and it is unprofessional to leave.  WHAT THE HECK????  Are you kidding me, just when you think the guy can not become a bigger scum, he totally out does himself.  At this point cheating on her would actually be a step up in their relationship.  I seriously hate him so much.   DEEP BREATHS, DEEP BREATHS.  Thankfully Joo Wan is there to tell Tae Yoon to go take a flying leap and grabs her hand and leaves.

Out on the street a blank Joo Yeon tries to pull away and says that she should go back to the party because of work.  But Joo Wan refuses to let her and says that he would rather die than let her go back to that jerk.  He yells at her that if he is going to let her go then she needs to choose someone who will treat her well.  She just looks distraught and asks where is she going to find someone like that (total face palm to the head... that girl is officially "not bright").  Poor Joo Wan breaks down and cries “Why isn’t there a person like that? That bastard is just bad. The bad guy is just bad! He’s bad, and only bad.” But then he pauses then says. “No, that’s a lie. I just don’t want to lose you to that bastard!”

My Thoughts:
Wow, as you know from my previous comments I had a lot of problems watching her start a relationship with her boss.  It is not so much even that I have anything against her having an outside relationship, especially if it means that she finally understands herself better and it leads her back to Joo Wan.  What I have a problem with is how horrible a boyfriend Tae Yoon is.  I predicted that he would continue to be selfish and emotionally abusive if he ever started dating her and unfortunately I was right.  I also am actually enjoying Joo Wan's calm being shaken up a little.  He was a tad too perfect and I did not realize that we almost never see him interact with those around her.  When he is just with her he is calm, but when outside forces try to move inside their bubble he gets antsy.  He was very cute trying to be good at being in a "love triangle" and I like that even though things are not going his way right now, he is still willing to fight and is confident in what he wants.  I think that that is also part of our OTP's problem.  Since he is so firmly entrenched in her life she has no concept of what not having him would be like.  He fulfills those romantic and emotional needs that her boyfriend can't or won't so she is in a weird way complete.  I worry that she won't be able to realize his value until he is gone from her life.  However that brings up the question as to whether she would realize why she was suddenly unhappy if her Sweet Potato was not there to tell her why she was upset.  It is a horrible cycle of confusion when you are a heroine who is not very emotionally bright.

Sincerely,
Kmuse