There are great dramas that are ten years old, and then there are some that have not aged well. The themes and messages here - especially for women - are spent and should be retired immediately. I am SO OVER the tired, cliched, and frankly unhelpful trope of the cold, mean, and bordering on abusive ML, as well as a FL who basically spends the whole drama getting berated, shamed, and publicly humiliated by the ML. Not to mention being called "stupid", "not pretty", "dumb", and "only cute sometimes" by multiple family members throughout the drama - including the ML. Also, and this might be the worst for me, (slight spoiler), we get to witness a few other women make moves on the ML in front of the FL, and the ML did nothing, or next to nothing, to try to stop them, and on multiple occasions played along. (Slight spoiler: this could have been excused at the beginning of the drama, but most certainly not toward the end, where it became seriously inappropriate.)

Much of the problem was also that not only did we hate the ML for being so nasty so often towards the FL, but the writernims did her not one single favor and made her about as ditsy, clumsy, clueless, and ridiculous as any character I've ever seen. There were no explanations given for why the FL was so "stupid" - but I imagine she had an undiagnosed learning disability, and it affected the way she learned and acted.
Everything she could possibly screw up, she did, everything she could drop, she dropped, everything she could be blamed for (even if it wasn't remotely her fault,) she got blamed for it, any situation could be turned into an opportunity to publicly humiliate her because of her actions, etc. She spoke like a baby for much of the drama, and at one point the sound of her voice actually started making me angry. It was like the viewers were being asked by the writers to join in the hate-fest for the FL because they just made it too easy. (That's not the actor's fault, necessarily, it's how she was directed and how the character was written.) These were not likable characters, in my opinion. And believe me, I tried.

There was also precious little overt kindness shown to the FL by the ML, and we didn't get much affection until the very end. (Again, slight spoiler: a very big life transition, which is supposed to be joyous, instead was permeated with coldness, and meanness, and even dread - it frankly ruined the whole thing for me.)

The cautionary tale here is that for 99.75% of the drama the FL had no life of her own, no ambition outside of orbiting around the ML like a planet, (that was even explicitly referenced), no capacity to exist outside of, or away from the ML, and no way to change his often-hateful behavior towards her. She was so insecure that she resorted to openly stalking the ML and exhibiting behavior that the viewers were expected to accept as cute and funny and romantic from her, but not from the SML or the SFL. It was a ludicrous way that women were treated in dramas, even just ten years ago, and I am so glad that we see less and less of this trope at present. It's just too damaging. To quite Kimmy Schmidt: "Females are strong as hell" and our media is starting to reflect that more, thankfully.

One positive thing I can say about the drama, is that it portrayed perseverance well...well, mostly well. I did not love that the FL was rewarded for her behavior during the years she had a one-sided obsession but I really did love her explanation of her nickname: Noah's Snail. Many of us have felt that way, and I did love that. But that was honestly the only thing.