not the way i think the script wanted me to. what was their great unrequited love based on? 'cause she didn't tease him like everyone else? 'cause he gave her a mixtape back when they were kids? well, he was slobbing down ruth the next day, so it couldn't have meant all that much to him. and that kind of stuff happens all the time. kids like each other, the music stops, and they end up in someone else's chair.

the script gave me no reason to believe that ruth and tommy's relationship wasn't genuine or that kathy's feelings for tommy were anything more than a crush that her social awkwardness wouldn't let her move beyond. or that tommy still had-- or ever had-- real feelings for kathy. so it's not that i didn't care about the characters, it's just that the "right" pairings (which are usually obvious in rom-coms, for example) weren't apparent to me. so when kathy and tommy ended up together at the end, i guess we're supposed to be really invested in that. i was just like, oh, okay.

EDIT: i think this is something that would be easy to fix visually without even revising the script. the way tommy and kathy look at each other, interact with each other, laughs, hugs, secret glances, etc. or if ruth is slightly cold around tommy, slightly artificial. things that wouldn't necessarily be in the script but that are more in the director's (and actors') hands can make it more obvious to us that tommy and kathy are meant to be with each other.