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Ayu spent seven years in one stable relationship - her only major one as far as I or any of us know. And those were seven formative years in anyone's life, the bulk of her 20s. She didn't go through the trial and error most young women go through during that time, when we learn what real, successful relationships are really like. I think Ayu had a stable, functional relationship with someone who accepted her as she was, but it lost its luster and they decided to part and stay friends. She instead started chasing the more "shiny," exciting type of love, which is a mistake - that "shiny" never lasts, and it either gives way to a subtle, comfortable feeling or disillusionment & disappointment depending on two people's compatibility. Anyone her age with that trial-and-error experience knows that, but she never really learned it. So with Mannie and Maro, she had the shiny, but they weren't compatible. She was excited, totally sure she was gonna stay with these guys forever, and she made mistakes many young women make. It's hard to believe she'd do that at 35, but put yourself in the place of a 19 year old - when it came to love, that's about how much experience she'd had. I don't think Ayu is any more "at fault" than the guys were. Sometimes relationships just fail. These did.
I don't think Ayu's dislike of Mannie's photobook is unreasonable - for one thing, it's far more socially acceptable for women to pose like that than it is for men to. I'm not saying I agree with her socially-built opinion on that, but it's true - when a guy poses like that it's far more shocking (I think most people here can agree with that). Plus, Mannie seems to have presented the photo collection as a gift for Ayu, but then took it public - looking at those photos together privately might have been a fun thing for them to do, laughing and kissing and being cute, but he decided to show those photos to the general public. Which, if I were her, I don't think I'd have been okay with either.
As for Maro's situation, he explained that she knew he had a kid from a previous marriage, but she didn't know he was still legally married. He probably presented to the whole world that his divorce was finalized when it wasn't, since it was "as good as" finalized in his eyes. She knew about some of his baggage, but not all of it - and I can't blame her for taking a chance on him despite his being a father if she really liked him, you know? We single parents need people like that to take chances on us. Yes, technically it's "baggage," but we deserve love too, right? Ayu didn't expect that Maro would have ulterior motives, using Ayu's celebrity to try to catapult his own, especially if they were getting along well - you don't suspect people you care about of that kind of thing. EVERYONE'S mind gets clouded by romantic feelings too - I mean there's scientific truth behind that. I'm really happy that Ayu acknowledges the Maro situation as a mistake - it's hard to swallow your pride and admit you screwed up. But she only screwed up by trusting someone she shouldn't have. I don't think ANY of us can judge her for that, I'm sure we've all done it.
Whether Ayu is at fault for these relationships failing or not DOESN'T MATTER. Each person was being themselves, doing what they wanted to do according to their own priorities, and those priorities didn't match up. Mannie didn't do anything WRONG doing that photobook, he simply proved that his principles were different than Ayu's. In my opinion Maro didn't do anything by having that past baggage - having similar baggage, I can't judge him for that. Using her popularity & the breakup to try to become more popular himself, yeah, that was a crappy thing to do. But as far as I can tell, the relationship itself seemed to have been more of a victim of tabloid snooping than anything else.
Ayu isn't at fault for these relationships ending any more than a high schooler is for her relationships ending, when she only started dating guys cuz they were cute. I don't expect ayu will have a lasting relationship for awhile, because she needs to figure out what her needs are. She hasn't really had enough practice to figure it out yet. Both Mannie and Maro were relationships based on "he's attractive and we get along, we're gonna be in love FOREVER!" which is a warped, romantic-comedy perception of how love is supposed to work. But we can't do any better than that without testing the waters, figuring out the image of the "perfect" relationship in our heads, and then finally finding the relationship that works for us. These didn't work for her or the men involved. That's all there is to it.
tl;dr: Ayu has no idea what she's doing when it comes to love, but can you really blame her? These guys were not right for her, but she couldn't have known that for sure until the relationships ended. Yes, she got too excited about these guys, but it's a learning experience for EVERYONE who falls in love.
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