I consume a lot of romantic media, much of it is NSFW. Either way, I'm a fan of the fantasy, but I've kindof talked myself out of it irl.
There's a difference between fantasy and reality, after all, and unless I can genuinely get myself into guys, which so far has been very low success, then realistically I know what the realities of the situation. The stats don't lie when you really look at them and don't dismiss them offhand...
Still tho, love romantic media, love pining heroines, love atypical couples with unique, recognizable dynamics, love "us vs. the world" vibe. It's great! Plenty of romances I don't care for, of course, but the ones that land land very well. Best examples would probably be from eroge, probably because when you don't waste so much time teasing around the issue you have the space to dig into the relationship dynamics, go figure.
Song of saya is #1 with a bullet. Every time I re-read it, it's utterly memorizing many moments make me tear up, and the conflict is very real, very compelling, and very well done!
Other more standard dating sim fate does well too, fruit of grisaia and katawa shoujo are both pretty standard dating sim setups, but both really land well. You feel for the characters, you genuinely want to know them better, the conflicts are good and believable, and they're far more digestible and innoffensive than song of saya. Katawa is legally free, too, so if you're looking for a romance kick, you've got no excuse not to pick it up! And I find it to be a good entry point into eroge I'm general!
Second double-bill recs are Yosuga no sora and white album 2. These are both on a really slow boil, but use those slow-boils to good affect. I've gotten impatient with both of them at times, but they've landed well in the end. I'd say Yosuga no sora is the less frustrating of the two, but it's also more taboo, though I think it handles it's taboo subject really excellently. White album is pretty standard at first, but has a maturity and realism about it that's quite appealing. Either of these are great, but a huge time-investment, and white album 2 in particular can feel frustratingly cyclical. I still need to play through the other major route in that one. But the route I did play was great when it wasn't being cyclical.
For more sfw stuff, next is the mecha-double-bill! I loved darling in the franxx. While it's comically on-the-nose at times, and I dismissed it at first thanks to
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