Our discussions in this blog weren’t all about the lovelines.

Here for instance, I pointed out the difference between JWan and JW’s approach to dealing with cheating when one of their friends was involved.

Songhwa was upset with JWan for keeping quiet about her cheating boyfriend. I agreed with her.

 

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@sayaris wrote this:

JWan and JWon did the same thing for the “affair”, they confronted the cheater. JWon is friend with IJ’s wife and IJ, he didn’t want his friend to mess up, he just had the wrong cheater in this case… JWan confronted the cheater and try to save SHwa’s pride, nobody would have known why she broke up with her boyfriend.

Thanks. Let me do a comparison.

A. JW the Buddha

1. How did he learn of the cheating?
JWan brought it up.

2. Immediate action taken?
Yes.

3. When was action taken?
Right away.

4. What action was taken?
Confronting the “cheater”

5. Reason for delay of response?
Not applicable. There was no delay of response.
He followed IJ and interrupted his tête-à-tête with Dr. Jang.

He pretended to ask for a cigarette.

JW: Ya, Ik-jun, give me a cigarette.

Jang immediately stood up to go. They bowed at each other. He signed after she was gone and plopped down beside IJ.

JW: Not with Gyeo-ul of all people.

Note: I knew JW didn’t like her, not after seeing her talk down to the mom. But I thought he changed his mind after the maggot incident. Nrllee and others, is there any possible reason why he would be UNimpressed by the maggot incident? The Ortho doctor was impressed, “She’s quite something.” I thought he’d be, too. So why would he say, “Not with Gyeol-ul of all people.” Meaning, anybody BUT her.

Wait a second…

Don’t tell me he’s attracted to her! Is that why he popped in at IJ’s meeting? To see her?

I’m rage-quitting if he dates her. Jang is a dealbreaker.

JW: You prick. You’d better come to your senses before I beat you up. What are you thinking? You’re married.

JW: (grabs a bite of Dr. Jang’s food) What?
IJ: What do you think of Gyeo-ul?
JW: What?
IJ: What do you think of her?

Somebody sighed. But it’s hard to tell who sighed. (See? I complained about the sound editing and how   show who was speaking/sighing in the transition scenes and this creates ambiguity.)

Note: The same sad tune was played as when he watched Dr. Jang remove the maggots.

Now let’s do JWan’s.

B. JWan

1. How did he learn of the cheating?
Saw it himself.

2. Immediate action taken?
None

3. When was action taken?
A couple of days after the encounter. He waited till after-office hours to confront Prof Jang at his office.

4. What action was taken?
Confronting the cheater

5. Reason for delay of response?
Arguably, it’s the Guys’ Code. He wanted Prof Jang to handle the situation on his own. When Prof Jang didn’t make a move, he threatened to tell Songhwa herself.

To Songhwa, however, he admitted that he couldn’t tell her.

Now Sayaris suggested that JWan hesitated to tell her because he wanted to save her pride. This suggestion implies that he thought about HER first. He didn’t want HER to become embarrassed of that fact that HE knew she was being cheated on. He presumed that it would hurt her pride that HE knew about it.

To some extent, I agree. However, I believe that he was thinking MORE about his own feelings than he was of Songhwa’s feelings.

He was embarrassed FOR HER. He was saving HER pride because HE felt that her ex’s cheating was something for HER to be embarrassed about.

This is what I would call “projection.”

source: Cornelius O’Connor

He was transferring his OWN unpleasant emotions onto her. He was the one who was embarrassed.

HE was the one who felt uncomfortable about a) seeing the cheating boyfriend and b) having to tell her that he witnessed it. He didn’t want to personally break the news to her because of his squeamishness.

Read their dialogues. I posted them below.

And THAT’s the whole point of Songhwa’s argument. She was saying that he shouldn’t have felt awkward, embarrassed, uncomfortable, or uneasy about informing her of her boyfriend’s cheating. She was saying that facts are facts. Just give the fact straight to her.

What does HIS emotion got to do with this?

Here are their dialogues.

1. From Ep 2, at 32:15

Jwan: What did I just say?
Songhwa: You saw Professor Jang with his junior. You knew it, didn’t you?

Context: Jwan just had a slip of the tongue. He accidentally said that he saw Professor Jang with his junior. This indicated that he had no intention of telling Songhwa that her ex had cheated on her.

And Songhwa got mad. She got mad because he didn’t tell her when he should have told her.

JWan: It was a coincidence.
Songhwa: Yaaah.

He didn’t get it. She wanted him to tell her, no matter what. Songhwa and JW the Buddha are on the same wavelength here. You speak up right away when cheating is involved. If your friend’s the cheater, you speak up. If your friend’s being cheated on, you speak up. In this case, Songhwa and JW have a similar black-and-white morality.

JWan: It’s a day or two before he came clean. I was going to tell you.
Songhwa: You should’ve told me right away.
Jwan: I can’t assume anything about relationships.
Songhwa: If you see something just tell me as it is. Your concern doesn’t matter.
Jwan: Hey, it’s not that easy to do. You think you could’ve told me?
Songhwa: Yes. I would tell you right away. I would tell you your girlfriend was cheating on you the second I saw it.

2. At the restaurant dinner:

Songhwa: If you’re so inclined to stick to the facts, why didn’t you tell me the fact that my ex was cheating on me?
Jwan: Professor Min’s case is different from your ex’s. He has nothing to do with me. It’s strictly work whereas you’re a couple. I can’t tell you what to do.
…
Jwan: Professor Min’s case is different from your ex’s. He has nothing to do with me. It’s strictly work whereas you’re a couple. I can’t tell you what to do.
Songhwa: I never told you to. I’m saying you should’ve told me what you saw.
Jwan: Could you have done it?
Songhwa: Yes, totally.
Jwan: Liar.
JW: Yah! The kalguksu is ready. Fight later. Let’s eat first.
Songhwa: (continuing) If I saw your girlfriend with another guy, I’d call you right away.
Jwan: Goodness, it’s easier said than done.
Jwan: I never liked Professor Jang to begin with. Pass me the chili powder.
Songhwa: Okay.
…

3. The texts after dinner:

Jwan: Did I really hurt your feelings?
Songhwa: (quickly tapping) No, I understand. I was just messing with you.

To sum up, then:

JWan knew that Prof Jang did wrong.
Jwan wanted Prof Jang to fix it himself.
JWan didn’t want to be involved.

Why didn’t he want to get involved?  Three reasons I could think of:

a) His rationalization — He thought the incident must be embarrassing for her and her pride must be saved. As @sayaris pointed out, he was saving her pride.

But “saving face” was only the superficial reason.

b) His real and unconscious reason — He personally felt awkward being the bearer of bad tidings.

Fern wrote this:

@Sayaris, good point. She knows that JWan knew about the affair but not that he influenced Prof. Jang to own up. I think JWan thought that being the bearer of bad news would be harmful to his and Songhwa’s friendship but in fact he lost out either way.

No. 🙂

I doubt that Jwan worried that their friendship would be harmed should he reveal the cheating. For one, he wasn’t the guy caught cheating. For another, surely he knew by now that Songhwa was more logical than to kill the messenger. Their friendship was solid.

Moreover, for us viewers, it’s nice indeed to know that he was instrumental in getting Prof Jang to confess. It mitigates his passivity.  You see, for a couple of days, he sat there in the sidelines and waited for the issue to resolve itself, instead of immediately taking action. (Hmmm…what would Captain Ahn do?) But his inaction becomes less worrisome when we also know that he finally went and forced Prof Jang to confess.

However, let’s put ourselves in Songhwa’s shoes.

If we simply focus on the issue at hand, like Songhwa did, it all boils down to this: did he or did he not tell her about the cheating boyfriend? When we pose the question plainly like that, then his forced confession has no bearing. It’s irrelevant. The fact remains that he chose NOT to tell Songhwa.

That’s the point of Songhwa’s discontent. He didn’t say anything when he *should have.*  In her mind, he was obligated to tell her the facts.

c) His real and subtle reason: He didn’t like Prof Jang anyway. He was glad they broke up anyway.

And to me, THAT is the reason he didn’t tell Songhwa. He was embarrassed to realize that he was glad that they were breaking up.

See how hard it is to analyze his mixed-up feelings for her?