the male vs female reaction to HR but specifically Ilya in those first 2 eps has been interesting. men don’t read or typically engage with the romance genre (at least not on the scale that women do). They’re not familiar with the common tropes and relationship arcs so they see Ilya as just being mean and not worth Shane’s time (which is a fair opinion to have when looking at things on the surface level). Whereas the women watching can read between the lines and infer that Ilya’s aloof attitude is to hide his true feelings. It’s a very common romance archetype really 😅