It's taken me a while to finally sit down and write a review for this drama, which I guess makes sense, because it took me awhile to finish watching the drama. I think this is a fairly popular drama, and I personally liked a lot of things about it. But there is one reason (well, two problems that compile together to make one big reason) you might not want to watch this drama. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from watching it, because I think I Don't Love You Yet has a lot to make it worth watching. But this one reason creates a lot of frustration when watching, and it's a common complaint about the drama even by those who love it, so I'm just going to lay it out for you and let you make up your mind from there.

If you hate the Love Octopus (my term for love triangles/squares/hexagons/trapeziums/parallelograms/the part of the drama that so often sends you into spiraling despair) ...you will not like this drama. There is a love square, and one side is particularly infuriating. The first half of the drama is fine. The second female lead provides moments of irritation in her role as part of the love square, but she's more like a fly that's gotten inside your house and likes to buzz around your head every so often then a wasp/bee that's actively trying to sting you to death. But the second half of the drama spends an obnoxiously long time in the Love Octopi territory with the worst example of an 'ex comes back' trope I think I have ever seen. Yes, the female leads ex-boyfriend comes back, and he is the Literal. WORST. He is so incredibly controlling of the female leads life when he's around, trying to manipulate and maneuver her to suit his own desires with no regard to her wants or needs. He's basically the stereotypical male lead jerk but who never grows or changes except until the Very End, and by that point, it's completely unbelievable seeing him as a nice guy and it would have been better if the writers had left him a jerk.

That's enough of a problem for the story on its own, but it unfortunately leads to a separate problem that makes the Love Square even more difficult to bear. Once the ex-boyfriend returns, the female lead becomes (almost) unendurably frustrating. I guess I can't say it's she's truly unendurable, because I obviously did endure it in order to finish the drama, but the female lead puts up with a lot of nonsense from a guy who once utterly wrecked her and whom she may not even be in love with anymore. He was incredibly selfish when they were first together, then he broke her heart out of nowhere disappearing into the night to go focus on thinking only about himself some more, and since then, the female lead has created a life for herself including a career she loves and a dawning recognition of her feelings for her best friend. And yet, Mr. Attack Wasp comes back, and we're supposed to believe that what they once had together is so valuable she would be willing to overlook his egregious behavior.

Maybe this could have worked if I had been able to relate to the female lead and her complicated feelings for this man. Old relationships like theirs can be very hard to get over, and even years later, you can still experience the pangs of hurt and disappointment and pining. But the female lead is already a bit of a frustrating character without the added torture of her terrible ex. The truth is, she is very self-involved. She's not mean or demanding or spiteful or anything like that. But she's very clearly been ignoring the poor male leads feelings for her for a long time, and truthfully, she's kind of taken advantage of those feelings. That and it's just patently obvious that she shouldn't get back together with her ex and there's no strong feeling on her part to suggest she would even want to to begin with.

So if you hate the Love Octopus, if you hate when the ex-boyfriend/girlfriend comes back, if you hate when one of the leads is a little too self-involved, you will definitely hate those things here. The reason, however, I still say this drama may be worth watching, is because I like literally everything else about it. There's no denying the actors are basically perfect for their roles, and even in the face of the female leads selfishness, I like both of the leads and I like them Together. I also think the finale is basically perfect, and watching it Almost erased my previous frustration with the story. Almost.

But the Love Octopus puts in a very valiant effort at strangling the life out of the story, and it had no right to do that.