Stalker (2022)

Secretly Crushing On This One

You know the saying, "Don't judge a book by it's cover"? That definitely applies to this drama. I don't think I've ever watched a drama that gave me such conflicting emotions. It is by far the cringiest the drama I have ever watched, the drama that made me talk to my screen the most, and made me suffer the most second hand embarrassment ever. I think I legitimately spent a good half of this drama just hiding my face because I couldn't watch that level of embarrassment unfold in front of me. That being said, this drama also had me in stitches, literally laughing out loud, it made me cry, and underneath all the cringe and embarrassment, is a really beautiful story. In the end, despite my initial uncertainty, I found this drama and its characters have a lot of heart.

The first few episodes were the hardest to get through and where I teetered on whether to keep watching or just drop it. At that point, you haven't really gotten to know the characters yet, so while most of them seem pretty innocuous, Toh comes across as a lot. I understand having a secret crush, I can even kind of understand keeping things associated with your crush though not nearly to the extent he does and definitely not the food items, that was just gross, but his crush went a bit beyond the bounds of comfort me into obsession. I wouldn't call him a stalker as technically the definition of a stalker is someone who harasses another person with unwanted or obsessive attention. In Toh's case, yes, I would say his behavior was obsessive, but he never harassed Nuea or in any way harmed him and Nuea never indicated that the attention was unwanted. Anyway, once I got past those couple of episodes and relationships started developing between Toh and Nuea and Jao and Sky, I became invested.

My absolute favorite thing about this drama though was the way that it broke down society's expectations. Neither Toh or Jao fit society's standards for attractiveness while both Nuea and Sky do. With that in mind, society would not expect them to get together, in fact, as is seen multiple times, society balks at them being together, saying its wrong. Society looks at the surface; beauty and beauty should go together. Nuea and Sky, however, looked under the surface. They saw Toh and Jao for who they were as individuals, not for their looks, and that's what they fell in love with. As someone who doesn't fit society's standards of beauty, I found that powerful. It gives me hope that I can find someone like that someday who will love me exactly as I am. I also loved how neither of them got tired of reminding Toh and Jao that they loved them just as they were. They didn't need to change themselves, they were perfect as is. I also felt like both relationships were good examples of healthy relationships. Nuea and Toh especially had overall good communication. They talked things out like adults for the most part and worked to get past any issues they had. With Sky and Jao, as much as Sky really liked Jao, I appreciated his patience and going at a pace that Jao was comfortable with. To me it showed that he respected his boundaries, especially that scene where they do finally kiss. Sky wanted to kiss him, but he could tell Jao was hesitant and he tells him he can wait. It's not until Jao consents that he kisses him. There's a mutual respect in both relationships that's pretty clear and I just really liked seeing how well it was portrayed.

And that also translated over to characters like Daisy who tried to change himself to be more masculine because he thought that's what Intouch wanted when in fact, Intouch just wanted him to be his badass, feminine self. It also highlighted that changing yourself into someone you're not isn't going to make you happy. Be yourself, there's nothing more beautiful than being confident in your own skin.

The friendship between Toh, Jao, Daisy and Som was a central part of this drama and I loved it. I honestly wish I had friends like that. Their bond is amazing and their unwavering love and support for each other is definitely one of the highlights of this drama. No matter what happens, they are there for each other. I also really liked Nuea and Sky's group of friends. They didn't have quite the same charisma, but they were obviously good people and it was always entertaining when both groups got together.

I absolutely recommend giving this drama a shot. Don't let the cringe and second hand embarrassment factors turn you off. Look past that and focus on the friendships, on the actual story, the characters, it's absolutely worth sticking it out.

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