The answer lies in a paradox:

The 2020s have ushered in a correction:

The healthiest relationships in real life look nothing like a Hallmark movie. There are no cue cards at an airport. There are no spontaneous flash mobs. Instead, real romance looks like doing the dishes when your partner is exhausted. It looks like apologizing without a "but." It looks like choosing to stay when a better option appears.

In real relationships, love hardens after we reveal our shame. In fiction, this is the "third-act breakup" or the "confession scene." But the mechanism is the same: vulnerability is the currency of romance.