BESTie 'Love Options' Meaning in English, and Why the 2013 Song Is Viral Again

'Love Options' is a list. Its Korean title, 연애의 조건 (yeonae-ui jogeon), means the conditions for dating. In it a woman explains why she is still single while insisting she asks for almost nothing: a man who is a little tall, looks a little like the actor Gang Dong-won and has a little money, plus a hundred roses and a diamond necklace or a ring. BESTie released it on 17 October 2013. It turns 13 this week, and it is back on the charts.

On YouTube's weekly Shorts chart for South Korea, which ranks the songs used most often in Shorts, 'Love Options' entered at No. 41 in the week to 10 September and was No. 1 in the week to 24 September. The country's weekly Top Songs chart shows a longer climb, from No. 53 in the week to 3 September to No. 12 in the chart week that closed on 8 October, with 1,754,379 views in that last week.

What do BESTie's 'Love Options' lyrics mean in English?

The song opens on three boys she has already turned down. One is too short and his face is far too big. One is so easygoing she suspects other girls are always around him. One spends the whole day showing off. Then comes the line the song returns to, in one form or another, “저 바라는 거 없어요” (jeo baraneun geo eopseoyo): I don't want anything.

The wish list follows at once. He should be a little tall and look a little like Gang Dong-won, one of South Korea's best-known film stars. He should understand a woman's heart, just a little, and have a bit of money; he need not plan any grand gesture, only the hundred roses and the diamond. Each wish arrives with a word that makes it sound modest, and not one of them is.

The chorus names what needs explaining: why she cannot love, why she is the only single one, why she turns up to gatherings by herself. There is a reason for all of it, she sings, and then she says again that she really doesn't ask for much.

In the rap that follows, she laughs off the idea that she might be the problem. All she wants, she says, is someone ordinary, a man who looks fine wherever he goes, who will tell her she is prettier than the actress Song Hye-kyo, put up with her temper and have eyes for no one else. After the rap, the wish list and the chorus come back word for word.

The last lines put the list away. She asks what love really needs and answers herself: someone who looks only at her, loves only her and takes care of her. Of all the conditions in the song, that is the one the lyric ends on.

Why is 'Love Options' viral in 2026?

Without TikTok's or Instagram's counts we cannot say which clip started it. It had a first, short run in May, when the 2013 video spent two weeks on YouTube's weekly music video chart for South Korea, peaking at No. 36 in the week to 21 May. What YouTube's charts show is when the song crossed into each one: Top Songs for South Korea in the week to 3 September, the Shorts chart a week later. After its No. 1 week on Shorts the clips fell back to No. 2 and then No. 5, while the full song kept rising, from No. 20 to No. 12 on YouTube. Spotify's weekly chart for South Korea, which kworb.net keeps, has it rising from No. 49 to No. 20, with 262,045 plays in the chart week that closed on 8 October.

Korea's national chart shows the same climb a step behind. On the Circle Digital Chart it went from No. 157 in the week to 19 September to No. 104, No. 83 and then No. 67 in the week to 10 October.

Vietnam moved with Korea: the song entered YouTube's Top Songs chart there in the same week, at No. 75. Taiwan followed a week behind and climbed YouTube's Top Songs chart from No. 89 to No. 17 over four weeks. Japan came a month behind: it entered that chart at No. 96 for the week ending 1 October, and a week later it was No. 9 on the Shorts charts of both Japan and Vietnam. On Shazam it was No. 2 in Vietnam, No. 3 in Japan and South Korea and No. 4 in Thailand at our radar's last reading, 23:19 UTC on 15 October.

The sound suits a 15-second clip. In the 2013 video, by our tools' timing, the voices come in at 19 seconds, the chorus first lands at 0:48 and returns at 2:06, and the loudness barely moves until the last 40 seconds. Most sections are tagged funk and rhythm and blues. With no slow build and a hook inside the first minute, almost any short cut sounds like the middle of the song. The lyric is just as easy to borrow: a list of big demands dressed up as small ones fits a joke about your own type.

Who were BESTie, the group behind 'Love Options'?

BESTie were a four-member group, Hyeyeon, Uji, Dahye and Haeryung, put together by YNB Entertainment. Hyeyeon, Uji and Haeryung had been in the first line-up of EXID in 2012 and left that group within months. BESTie made their debut in July 2013 with 'Pitapat', and 'Love Options', written and composed by the producer Brave Brothers, was their second single. Uji and Dahye left the company in September 2017, and the group came to an end in October 2018.

So the song is climbing for a group that split up eight years ago. Like P!nk's 'Just Give Me a Reason', it is climbing without a remix, a tour or a fresh video to push it; unlike P!nk's, its trail through short videos is easy to follow. In the week 'Love Options' reached No. 12 on YouTube's chart for South Korea, the song at No. 1 was SOYEON's 'I'm Gonna Toesa'.

By the chart week ending 31 October, 'Love Options' will be in the Circle Digital Chart's top 50; that is our forecast. It has gained 90 places in three weeks, though each week's gain has been smaller than the last: 53, then 21, then 16. From No. 67 it needs 17 more places over three weeks, about six a week, against 16 in its slowest week so far.