Characters > Romance

Before I start, I just want to point out that, as a girl, I like romance. If a story ends with the two lovers riding off into the sunset (more often than not to make a wave of babies), I am totally down with that. Stories that end with a happily ever after make me a happy girl.

Despite that, I'm not really a fan of romance stories.

I can hear the wtf?'s you're thinking (cyber telepathy is awesome that way). "How can you not like romance stories if you like romance?"
Easy question to answer: It's because most romance stories are so formulaic and derivative that I already know how they progress and end by the time I'm done the first paragraph/ten minutes into the movie.

A normal romance (be it in book or movie form) will follow one of these formats:

1) Boy meets Girl. Boy and Girl don't get along. Boy and Girl's friends will play matchmakers. Wacky romantic hyjinks ensue. Boy and Girl fall for each other. A huge misunderstanding will split the two apart. Lots of emoing on whether they will or won't get back together. The misunderstanding is resolved, and the two do get back together. They all live happily ever after.

2) Boy meets Girl. One falls instantly in love with the other. One will perform crazy stunts to attract the affections of the other. Wacky romantic hyjinks ensue. Boy and Girl fall for each other. A huge misunderstanding will split the two apart. Lots of emoing on whether they will or won't get back together. The misunderstanding is resolved, and the two do get back together. They all live happily ever after.

3) Boy meets Girl. One is coerced into a bet/deal to turn the other into something they are not. There may be a Best Friend, who is secretly pining after one of them, and will have their misery go unnoticed by their object of affection. Wacky romantic hyjinks ensue. Boy and Girl fall for each other. The bet/deal comes to light and one will break it off with the other. Lots of emoing on whether they will or won't get back together. After dwelling on their feelings, one will forgive the other, or the Best Friend will come forward with their feelings. The misunderstanding is resolved and the Boy and Girl do get back together, or one and the Best Friend hook up, leaving the other with the lesson that you can't toy with people's feelings. One of the optional couples lives happily ever after.

4) Boy meets Girl. They fall for each other, but are honour/duty/obligation bound to not have a relationship. Lots of UST as they are forced to work together. UST gets resolved, leaving a Third Party emotionally wounded. Boy and Girl will either call off the relationship so they won't hurt the Third Party any more, or they will continue the relationship despite the opposition. A conflict arises, and one of the three is killed, most often the Third Party so the Boy and Girl can live happily ever after. If the Boy or Girl dies, then the surviving one's bonds with the Third Party are left too damaged to repair, and no one lives happily ever after. If there was no Third Party, then the survivor will either pine ever after, or die so they can be with their love.

If a romance story is well written/acted, then I can forgive the derivativeness and simply enjoy it. But 9 times out of 10 I'll come across a romance so hopelessly mediocre that I'll want to vomit rather than read/watch it. And it is because of this over saturation of unoriginal romance that I prefer stories of friendship so much more.

With romance stories, you read/watch them to see what kind of situations the leads get into, whereas in a friendship story you're reading/watching it for the interaction between the two leads. Because no two people are exactly alike, there are infinite possibilities for how one personality will deal with/play off another, and what kinds of situations they can get themselves into and out of. I like stories/movies where two characters of the opposite sex are comfortable enough with each other that they don't have to resort to unrealistic scenarios to express their affections for one another.

I may be a freak, but I would much rather read/watch something where more thought has been put into the personalities of people, than something derivative where its only draw is the gimmicky shenanigans the one dimensional characters get up to.

Besides, those antics may work in the movies, but if you continually serenade someone with romance songs in the wee hours of the night, you'll get a restraining order faster than you can say "romantic comedy".