top of page

Watch Lovestruck in the City Before Entering a Relationship

Lovestruck in the city – a welcome change to the usual romance K-drama genre.


The show starts off with Lee Eun Oh and Park Jae Won and four other side characters talking about relationships and how they would deal with different relationship-based scenarios. This is the instant hook for the drama because, in the first starting minutes, you are already presented with relationship problems and heartbreaks, something that is not really seen in other K-dramas. The fun part is that the show is directed as almost a mockumentary crossed with a drama, so it presents a unique way for the characters to be more fleshed out and allow audiences to understand their character motivations more without being a drag.


In the show, the main leads first met in Yangyang, a small county with a sparkling sand beach and crystal-clear water surrounding them. The beach, a camper, two attractive singles. The relationship was bound to happen. When they first met, however, Eun Oh introduced herself as Yoon Seon A. Burdened with her absurd work termination and her crashing love life, Eun Oh took on the identity of the lively, free-spirited girl she saw at an interview once and decided to borrow her name and live like her for the next three months. Seon A was the complete opposite of Eun Oh. Daring, courageous, a happy-go-lucky girl who brought joy and comfort to anyone near her. Her joyous personality is what caught the attention of Park Jae Won in the first place, and while living life like Seon A, they fell in love and even got married. The two of them were supposed to spend another month together at Yangyang, but a work emergency brought Jae Won back to Seoul, and the two promised to meet up again in the city. He kept his promise. She didn’t.


When they were both back in Seoul and Eun Oh resumed her identity again, she did everything she could to avoid Jae Won and was determined to leave their love as a short-lived fling. Even when they eventually met up again, she was still firm in denying the love they shared, even while secretly pining after and missing him.


I know many people watching the show or who have at least read the synopsis would wonder why Eun Oh would not admit that she was the person he fell in love with then. Even though it was a fake persona she created, she was still the one actively making the decisions. Her character might rub you in the wrong way because of how she strung the guy along, but when the episodes delve more into her story, you would come to know why she was acting the way she was.


Because have you ever felt less-than?


When you don’t feel like you deserve anything good that comes to you, even if you were the one that actively made it happen? Imposter syndrome happens to the best of us, and it takes no one’s comments and praise to soothe and comfort yourself other than your own mind. People can tell you how great you are as much as they want, but their words only matter if you think it matters. That was what happened to Eun Oh. She didn’t want anyone to know about her identity in Yangyang because she finds it embarrassing that her entire persona there was the complete opposite of her. She finds all the decisions she made there not the ones she would’ve chosen but the ones the character she created would’ve chosen, which is why she found it so hard to come to terms that her decisions made them were of her own. None of the feelings and experiences she felt and lived are fake, but because of her self-doubt and low self-esteem made her feel like she was fake. Before she shared her life with someone else, even if it was a person she loved more than life itself, she had to make sure she comes to terms and knows who she truly is, which is a lesson I think all of us should keep in mind. Relationships aren’t meant to complete us, they aren’t meant to fill up a hole left by previous horrible experiences life has inflicted upon us. It is meant to nourish us, enrich our lives, and make life brighter and more colourful than it already is. Even if by the series finale she didn’t manage to figure out who she was yet, she has already accepted that she was a work in progress.


She already accepted herself.


In Jae Won’s case, the entire show he was plunged into self-doubt as well. He was stuck wondering why the girl he felt such intense feelings for left him, feelings that he knew they both shared. From Jae Won’s character, you learn relationships are more than a handsome face and money. It’s more than grand gestures and honey-coated words. It’s more than passion and spontaneity. It’s about accepting the person even if they’re not at their best. To understand the meaning behind their actions even if you don’t agree with them. To give them the space that they need to work things out without making everything about themselves. Relationships involve two people, not two halves of a fractured shell.


Fictional works are always grounded in the reality they are written in. Though Eun Oh and Jae Won’s relationship is Yangyang was nothing less than a fairy-tale romance, real-world problems follow them when they returned to Seoul, problems that many people in real life face. It teaches you two important lessons: acceptance and acceptance. Accept who you are and accept who your partner is so that a relationship could truly blossom.


If I could summarise this drama into an iconic quote, it would be “if you don’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?”

bottom of page