All the cute kisses can’t make up for bad characterization.

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.