Song Qian and Song Weilong start off with immediate chemistry in the first few episodes of Find Yourself. Even better, all the side-characters are also attractive, varied in personality, and fun. However, as soon as the main couple gets together, Find Yourself loses itself.
The set up of the older woman -younger man ship feels like it’s only there in name. What I was hoping for was a story of the female lead choosing between societal expectations of a more mature “age-appropriate” relationship and romantic true love, instead, the “age-appropriate” relationship is even less mature, while the “romantic true love” feels no different than the usual rich CEO-younger girl relationship. T
he female lead never really deals with the pressures of a single, independent woman in her thirties thanks to extremely loving family and friends. What the female lead instead does deal with is selfishness in the relationship and lack of empathy. Like the male lead’s complaint about her, she treats the whole relationship as a romantic fling rather than a real relationship. This would’ve worked if she was an older, more experienced player in romance, but it doesn’t work when the set-up has her as a hopeless romantic. Here is a list of crazy stuff she does:
- Refuses to make public their relationship even after the two aren’t boss-intern anymore.
- Lies to her friends and gets the supporting male lead to be her fake boyfriend at her college reunion.
- Visits the supporting male lead at random hours, pretends to be his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, accepts very expensive jewelry from the supporting male lead, and doesn’t tell the male lead any of this
- Accepts expensive jewelry from the supporting male lead but returns expensive jewelry from the male lead, deciding for him that it’s too expensive for him. You’re his girlfriend, not his mom, just take his gift! It’s not yours to return.
The male lead is so perfect he feels like he came out of a factory – cute, thoughtful, wealthy, pushes you but respects your boundaries, shows jealous occasionally but immediately forgives you when you realize you’re wrong. It’s hard to see him as a living human being with feelings or his aspirations. Despite his age, he feels like the most experienced romantically.
The rest of the cast also breaks down quickly. The professor-student (Zhang Yujian – Yu Shuxin) relationship is cringy and inappropriate. Many of the professor’s actions, like forcing his student to get dessert with him outside of school, are definitely illegal where I live. The supporting male lead played by Wang Yaoqing starts off as a silly character but quickly becomes simply manipulative and disrespectful as he lies to the female lead over and over. The female lead’s coworker is equally manipulative towards pretty much everyone.
It’s so unfortunate that a fun cast with an interesting set-up and initially good characterizations turned into a competition of who is crazier.
Where can I watch this?
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Im a 34 year old woman but I look like im in my early twenties. Trust me Im not worried about kids or getting married. Im in a great relationship. I think its a huge stereotype to say a woman whos 32 is only focused on getting married. Thats why HF was trying to get
across the entire cast that those things are not important. yourself is.. Oh and about the professor I did not find this cringey at all. She is 20 shes an adult LOL how is that illegal? its of for the lead but not for the professor? biased again.I enjoyed their relationship and her friend who got pregnant I really wanted to see more of those. I thought the HF getting jealous scenes got annoying after awhile just admit it girl ur jealous jeez.
He is in a position of power because he is her professor. In the U.S., that is one of the standards for deciding whether a relationship is inappropriate or not. If they met outside the classroom, then okay, but as her prof, he can control her grades and her reputation.
I was left disappointed by this series it started off so good but then went rubbish and He fanxing’s character was so annoying and constantly leading Luming on and seriously she spent 70+ days dating Yuan Song which is no doubt less than her relationship with Luming. Her friends are all making real adult decisions and she’s behaving like a young teenager with a crush 😂
This drama is the worst Chinese drama i’ve ever watch. The one thing that made me furious is that she is not faithful, didn’t commit fully into her relationship with YS. Two-timing and she didn’t even apologize. The whole drama is also manipulative too. At first it is good but later it went to the wrong direction.
I haven’t finished this yet, but I think it’s actually a fantastically layered, realistic drama. As someone with a a bit of life experience I felt for each of the characters so much. I loved the way they portrait three different relationships (married with kids, childfree and dating stages) in your 30s. Because love in your 30s is a different ballgame from the usual early 20s drama. The urgency, responsibilities and limited, society… It also shows that people grow and change at any age.
Do you choose to live as a “normal, average” person, with a predictable outcome, but boredom and yet plenty of compromises when it comes to passion, sex and love or do you choose what feels good, but might have unpredictable outcomes, up and downs and repeatedly judgement from society?
This question is posed to all the characters. The leads, and answered quite differently, also according to gender. It shows how women’s choices are often limited a lot more and judged harsher than a men’s.
Even as a woman living in Europe I can relate to that so hard. I have a friend who is 34 and her boyfriend of 3 years is 10 years younger and they met the same objections at every turn. But even so it works, as it does in this drama, because they both have about the same level of maturity. And that too can happen.
At last, a review that mirrors my sentiments. I thought the same things especially w the female lead always at the older dude’s beck and call like she’s single. And then jumping in a relationship w him after finding out that he’s been planning to steal her the whole time they were friends! I have to finish tho so I’m pretty much fast forwarding the episodes to get to the ending. It would’ve been a really good show…
I really wanted to find a thread that I can voice my opinion bc I had such high hopes for this drama and quickly went downhill..I never really felt that there was a love connection between the 22 and 32, just more of lust than anything else. The older guy is better for her NOT bc of money etc but I believe that he showed some maturity and was willing to wait for her to get over her crush. I was hoping to see them get together as they had build such a good friendship and can relate better than the 22 year old. OH well, I am so sad I invested time into this for a flop.
If you all just want to watch because of romantic relationship between the leads obviously we are not living in reality and only blame the female lead. Because in a relationship, younger male with older or older with younger, we need to include the people around us too not just between male and female loving each other in this world. We need to think about our parents, family, our situation we are living in, especially the society that only wants the perfect matching couple in their eyes. and women always need to suffer because of the society and not men. The overthinking, sensitive, and naive (only in love) He FanXing is her fate to fall in love with her intern, when her twin brother can’t even imagine she will dating his student, and her boss even said Yuan Song is her son! if you change your name with He FanXing and be in her situation what would you choose? Your dream love or find another love who fits your situation/society because you want a normal life to deal with. only you can find the answers. and He FanXing wants to try her ‘answer’, what if she choose a man who fits her and let go the man she loves that has more brighter future because he’s young and maybe meets a better girl than her. Just like this drama title, Find Yourself, only you can find what you want in this life. when you are not in her shoes, i don’t think you all have the right to blame her.
I agree with a lot of the comments about this drama. But, i fear that the worst is yet to come with HF’s father being diagnosed with Alzeihmers and worrying that he won’t remember his daughter enough to walk her down the aisle at her wedding. Therefore, HF is just going to marry YL because he’s smarmed his way into her life and her parents life and she thinks their compatibility (see his age and wealth), will enable to her to have a normal life. What it should give her is a life where she doesn’t love or respect her partner and might start to resent him and her parents for pushing them together and preventing her from choosing her own path – rather than bow to societal and parental pressures.
I think it’s interesting that when HF first met YL, she physically cringed at him as if he made her blood run cold. There is also no evidence that she has even held his hand, let alone kissed him. If someone repulses you that much, why would you stay with them??….
… And don’t get me started on her brother’s relationship. I just fast forward through all of their scenes together because it has a severe and vomit-inducing ick factor mainly because MinMin is such a desperate, whiny, toddler!
If there would be a way to have YL and Minmin just leave, I don’t know – Mainland China a couple of episodes before the series ends, and just have the other characters resolve their issues, I might be more inclined to see it through. As it is, there can only be complete u-turns in terms of our characters’ behaviours to give me a satisfactory outcome so I’m leaving this at episode 35 as I’ve only watched about 5 mins of each of the last 4/5 episodes as they’ve been so bad!
The fact that can predict the end is what makes this drama Corny and boring. I think that they will in fact pair the young YS together with FH and the 20 year old girl and her brother may work out too.
So I like when I can’t truly predict the ending so clearly so the writers are either doing a terrible job or FH will suddenly realize she loves Luming and not just as a choice.
The fact that the let Luming give one month to take a step was a give away too. He should have given up and told her to sort things out or go back to her EX who she still loves.
Hello, I have read your comments about it and, forgive me the sincerity, In love as in war everything is allowed, nobody forces anyone to do something they do not want to do, I do not criticize society for their customs, Thank God from where I am everyone who does what he wants with his life and does not give a damn what others think, I had a similar relationship only that we were a little older, I was 31 and she 47 , all ended by social differences outside of us, I emigrated she did not want to do it, but I know cases where she has worked, maintained the family while he was studying, with the same 10 years of difference and today they are still happy and happy, I expect an outcome like, he will leave to finish his career and return to her, supposedly more mature, and they would give themselves a second chance, it would be a melodrama if she marries the fake boyfriend, when you do something to please others, you end up lying to yourself, be yourself first, be yourself during and be yourself at the end, remember, everyone leaves and only you are left, It would not be very educational and less credible in the 20th century to make such a decision, only for the safety of the family, If you want to sell dreams and touch current issues you must strengthen the relationship with age differences in the end that should be the goal, Teach that love overcomes everything, sorry I think I was very excited about the comment, I do not seek to create discord is only my point of view, I hope not to hurt feelings.
There’s a difference between the actions of the leads and a show’s treatment of them. Well-written character flaws are intentional, but it’s clear the creators of this show don’t really think most of the actions by the leads are that big of an issue. The male lead’s “acceptance of her actions” is not a compliment but a complaint. He doesn’t ever really emphasize the fact that these things are not okay to do but quickly forgives her each time, and so the show never really acknowledges nor resolves their problems (maybe they do later but I’m not waiting that long). Similarly, the actions of the supporting male lead are normalized by the reactions of everyone around him, and same with the unhealthy student-teacher relationship.
If the characters were real people, then sure I might be okay with them, but they’re characters in the context of a story, and the fact that the story repeatedly treats all of their actions as inconsequential and okay is not really okay with me.
I agree I don’t like this drama at all it’s manipulative and wrong on so many levels I can’t think of the best way to end I may be very disappointed
Since they’re showing the brother entering another similar relationship they will probably put her back with YS who I dislike as well. He’s young but manipulative too.
I just can’t fathom a real future for a 32 year old woman and a 22 year old because in reality she should start a family soon and doing so with a younger man that is still planning on studying seems like you’ll hold him back or have to make compromises. Her character is stupid enough to do that and decide she wants to support him especially now That they showed he’s rich.
This is the wurst drama so far in that I watched.
Crash Landing on you which is airing now makes this seem even worst!
Totally disagree, both men are manipulative if you really think about it. It’s because Yuan Song is good looking that a lot of what he did initially is considered being good at flirting, if he wasn’t good looking the audience would have immediately labeled it as harassment, that’s the sad truth. I mean threatening to tell the boss that she used her status on him if she didn’t give him a favorable response? come on. How can you put so much of the blame on her? With the way her character is set up, it’s completely natural for her to act the way she did and make certain decisions. She is just like the poor woman who dated that gossipy neighbor’s son in society’s eyes. Do you seriously expect her to act like she’s in a normal relationship under those circumstances? not to mention he’s an intern at her company and her brother’s student. I agree with the first comment, the women always gets blamed, even and especially with female viewers. What the hell is up with that?
I agree with everything you’ve said. I’m shocked at the outrage at her. He’s manipulative. The relationship with his Ex is also troubling and he’s hiding too many things about hisself.
handsomeness is not all. She’s 32 and will weight marrying and having kids not burdening a 22 year old.
Yes that threat was a turn off when they were starting.
Glad I’m the only one not thinking stupid woman because he’s younger and handsome.
Hmm YS is definitely more experienced romantically even if he is younger. He got her to bed even before she agreed to date him. Come on? Is the image of perfect guy from factory blind you? His friend said he only didn’t date one last year and it’s obviously he has been into older women. In fact he manipulated her into the relationship in the beginning and often play his game well.
This review is a prime sample how people are much harder in women than men just just like drama said. You obviously see no wrong or mistakes from the male lead but blaming everything on the female lead even she is also the victim of society and 2nd lead. The male lead never gave her a sense of security- he joked that she thought of life time when they are just together and he never told her his secrets nor discussed about the future or his career with her. He is pushy and obviously playing push and pull with her when she has no experience whatsoever bad eventually lost to him. He confessed publicly and threatened to break up with her. And when she agreed, he cried with everyone that he got played by her when he chased and brought up the 3-month time as well as breakup up himself? But yes, to you and many fangirl he is a perfect pitifully boy? Lol
Meanwhile she is selfish and crazy because she worried about his spending when she received an expensive gift. That’s why she filled yo his house. Her intention is giving his money back because he is just an intern with not much money. But she is crazy to concern and look out for him? If she is 18 she would probably act differently but she isn’t. She cooked and cleaned even she doesn’t do that at home. She broke up because she doesn’t want to blocking his future and opportunities. All his hiding secrets also help she think she is just another girl in his life and never see a future with him. I mean before criticizing her, have you put yourself in her situation, her work her age and dating someone 10 years younger, to see why she did what she did. I’m not saying she is right but her actions or reasons aren’t that hard to understand.
And yes, it’s once again all so her fault that the 2nd lead is super manipulative and sharp while she is inexperienced with male nor have confidence in relationships to figure him out. It’s also her fault to not interacting much with males except her brother so she thinks it’s normal between male and female relationship. Like she does with HCY all the time- getting massage from him or hanging out with him at night…
I’m not saying she is perfect because the drama is definitely her journey to grow and gain encouragement. However the drama is right about the world is much harder on women and the double standard is real here that it hurts. Like HCY never get criticized when he didn’t recognize the relationship between FX and YS even it’s so obvious in front of his eyes but FX get criticized and called bad character or crazy/ stupid or even cheating for not recognizing the 2nd lead like her. Both is the same age and have successful careers and supposed to be smart. But why is the treatment so different?
Excellent review. As an Asian woman, I totally get why she is anxious in the relationship especially thinking if her boyfriend future and not wanting to be stumbling block .
Okay, now I’m feeling a little more optimistic again about the drama! I’ll keep an open mind as I watch it.
I actually loved Female lead among all of them. She is the only mature one in the entire cast. Everyone else just complaining and yapping over nothing. FL cares about her friends and family that she tried to live her life with reasons. She might not prioritizing her love but for goodness sake, how many relationships are there actually base on soulmate and criticizing her would be a double standard.
Did any of you notice when the female lead ‘s friend is at the spa with another overweight co worker Song Xue has to leave after a phone call she addresses her friend as Fatty. Fatty I can have dinner with you tonight. I was shocked. Is this appropriate.
I loved this drama so much that I have watched at least three times.And you’re right it is a double standards. If the male was thirty two and the female was teen two society would be ok with it. Having said that I was upset that she was always at the second lead beck and call. She was too naive, but if Yuan Song was at another woman beck and call she would have been too trusting in that situation as well because of her lack of experience , thinking only the best of other! I could not stand the second lead! I also hated the fact that the pregnant friend , friends were too much in her business. It was her husband not their. What bother me the most In this Chinese drama was you never see hardly any overweight actress and they showed one with Xue Song Ina beauty spa and Xue Song Nick name
For hern as” Fatty” I was as Shocked to say the least!
Sorry to hear that this seems to have gone off the rails a bit, especially as it had such a promising start. But tell me, is it as frustrating as “Well-intended Love,” because THAT is the water mark for going astray!
Well intended love is the worst drama that I haven in a long while. I stopped watching it, like after the third or fourth episode. What is wrong with these writers. Don’t say that you don’t want to move in with a maa a n and change your mind that quickly. Play a little hard to get !And who would accept an engagement from practically a stranger that easily. The drama just didn’t ring true to real life in my opinion!
“Well-intended Love” is the opposite of good intentions, right? Now, are you referring to the original “season 1” or the “season 2” (that really isn’t a continuation of 1? I can’t make myself push “play” on 2 because 1 burned me so badly!
Agree with most except some of the criticism leveled at the female lead: I think it’s a combination of He Fanxing’s insecurities, trust issues and miscommunication on both sides (accepting second male lead’s offer to act as bf, study abroad, step mum) that led to this outcome.
I agree with you. He has permitted some misunderstandings…and that man LM is a Sox trying to get his objectives…selfish…I am very identify with this drama…I felt this feelings like HF…my husband is younger than me…and at the beginning of our relationship I didn’t want to accept him because that…but almost 9 years later we are happy (6 marriage). I hope they will be together at the end ..and the love win.
As a woman and with life experience ~ The younger women and older man works younger man older woman especially 10yrs younger is a stretch. He’ll cheat later higher % guarantee ~ those relationships are rarer for a reason.
I won’t go out with a man 10 yrs my junior if I were in my 30’s. If I was older then I was in my 50’s maybe because by then he knows what he really wants in his life!