...The outcome of this poll is probably going to be easy to predict. ^^; But despite that, I think there's a discussion to be had about why that is. I've spoken about this issue plenty of times under different topics, but this is the first time I've framed it as a pure True or False, so maybe that'll invite more responses.

So: my vote is an automatic True, because I believe most authors don't actually know how to write, period. ⚆_⚆; Even when you get into professional settings, your odds are about 50/50. It's just how it is, I guess.

But when it comes to writing romance in particular...because it's such an easy draw for any given story (alloromanticism gonna alloromanticize) it's kinda never really been something an author needs to 'know how' to write. For a very long time you could just say that characters fell in love and got married as the cherry on top of a completely unrelated story, and that was totally normal. The demand for an engaging 'relationship' to preface and build up a romance is a relatively recent phenomenon-- I'm not saying that they weren't written in centuries past, I'm just saying they weren't particularly needed or expected.

Fast forward to now, where romance is still an easy draw that you don't have to 'know how' to write, but readers still expect some amount of effort from you in establishing it...even if it's just effortful fluff, you have to do something. Which leads to all the confusion, mixed messages, time-wasting, and toxicity that you get in your average amateur romance, and all the dull and painfully predictable "awkward comedy" that you get in your average mainstream romance.

Writers seem to flounder and fall back on tired tropes just to fill time...or for the more-advanced, to provide at least a semblance of engaging character conflict and stakes. This is why will-they-won't-they is so common, in my opinion: the highest stake you can possibly introduce to a romance is whether or not it will survive...or even exist. Doesn't matter if this stake even makes sense for the characters as they are written; just make them say they're 'not sure' or 'don't know' about entering a relationship with someone they're clearly attracted to and spend absurd amounts of time with, and you can string readers along for years. Bonus points if it's never your intention to confirm the relationship or develop it beyond that single stake...as is the case with queerbaiting. T_T

Anyway, probably the worst 'tired trope thrown in to make a romance feel interesting', in my opinion, is Enemies to Lovers. Not only is it annoying, cheap, and lazy, it has completely rotted people's brains, even the brains of writers who don't care about romance. 9 times out of 10, if a non-romantic story finally introduces a romance, it will be framed as Enemies to Lovers...and only because the formerly-common Sexy Lamp and Damsel in Distress framings are now considered sexist and outdated.

Although I'd argue that Enemies to Lovers is just as sexist if not more, considering its origins...If you think this trope is toxic now, you should take a look back at how it was used in the 1940's and 50's (with an incredibly uncomfortable resurgence in the 70's...). I've seen so much of it basically used to imply that you need to "tame" a woman and figuratively/literally beat her into submission to make her fall in love with you, because a fun, wild, quirky girl is fine to date but the romance won't last unless she learns to see you as her superior.
And on the (almost worse...?) flipside, you need to "tame" a man and endure any of his violence and aggression, because it's actually a beneficial weapon you can wield against others, if you learn to manipulate him into wanting to defend you...and if you're not "woman enough" to figure that out, well, there's this romantic quasi-martyrdom to be found in suffering through marriage and quietly bearing all the pain and being so strong and mature for everyone else's sake and BLEGH ICK BLEGH BLECH

...The sad part is that a lot of ^that thinking still survives through this trope in particular: I believe that's it's main form of delivery to modern audiences. I think of it every time I hear about men using humiliation tactics while dating, and women promoting toxic masculinity, claiming that men who are kind and emotionally open are "unattractive" and weak, or must be hiding something.
Even when you're watching a kids' cartoon and the guy MC wants to get the girl MC, and his wingman tells him to "act cool and like you don't care about her"...we know it's bad advice. We know the lesson of the day will be to "just be yourself". But this idea that a romance needs to start as an antagonistic dynamic is still present, still weirdly common even in irony.

...This got pretty rambly. ^^; But my point is that it's such an easy source of conflict, even outside of its heteronormative roots, that writers lean on it way too much. To the point where the simple act of making characters not like each other somehow counts as setting up a romance...and to be clear, I don't care when fandom does this; shippers can think whatever they want. But when an actual writer is doing this, acting as they can forge a deep, meaningful relationship out of pointless bickering and constant put-downs with the occasional "well...actually they're kind of cool" moment in between...it's honestly pathetic.

Like I said, it just feels like brainrot...regurgitating the same dynamic over and over, sometimes with multiple couples in the same cast...writing as if the idea of people actually liking each other before feeling romantic attraction is "too normal" or childish, and in some cases, not needed after romantic attraction either.
^This is even more painful, when it happens: the couple is actually confirmed and together-- a rarity! -- but if they started caring about each other that would be "cringe", so they need to go on bullying each other and constantly trading insults in every line of dialogue...forever. Even though, now that they're mutually in love, we know for certain that these insults are meaningless, so it's literally just edgy window dressing. The dynamic becomes even more worthless than when it started.

TL;DR: yeah, 'will-they-won't-they' is boring, and Enemies-to-Lovers has the potential to be both boring AND toxic/offensive. But I think the reason why they're used poorly (even though they don't have to be) and the reason why many authors don't know how to write romance boils down to the same thing: fear of sincerity.

Being happy with someone and saying "I love you" without having to tack on "...dumbass" is considered wholesome-cutesy schlock. The idea that you can say those kinds of things without being cutesy-- by being serious and sincere-- is just barely entertained. It is simply a dramatic device to pull out during the climax, to make the audience cry during a big moment, to make sure they know the characters are together and in love so you never have to do anything but hint at it ever again.

And this makes a lot of romances feel hollow and disjointed, because they lack moments of honesty and emotional security that make the relationship feel strong and 'safe' for the participants. You can try to use tropes to fill in the gaps-- self-sacrifice is a common one-- but those don't stand up without adequate support. A relationship is a team effort, where both partners need to give and take: if all you show is 99% mutual taking with maybe 1% giving by whichever one of the characters is brave enough to look vulnerable for half a second...whatever you end up with is not gonna feel real, and it's not going to be memorable to anyone but shippers. And relying on fandom hysteria to carry a half-written story (a discussion for another day...) is just unprofessional and short-sighted. In 5 years your shippers will have moved on to something else, and then no one will remember why they ever cared about your story.

I'm genuinely shocked that False is beating True...this is really interesting. ^^; 2 years ago I would not have gotten this response on this forum; I can tell you that...it's surprisingly heartwarming seeing people finally stepping up to defend the romance genre, even if I don't necessarily agree with their points. 20-year-old me would be proud~

I don't know how good this analogy is for your point, tbh. ^^; Like, I agree that it's apt, but I have a different takeaway from that observation.

Generally, fast food is designed to fill you up and taste good...usually without providing sufficient quantities of the nutrients that your body actually needs. It's only fulfilling part of the purpose of food-- there's an essential aspect that's missing.
And even if people don't care and want to eat their McNuggets anyway...I feel a responsibility to point out what's missing regardless. People should know that a cardboard box of fried slaughterhouse scraps is not the only way to enjoy eating chicken, or to prepare it for others to enjoy. Sure, a lot of them might not care...but some might. Some might decide to care in some instances and not care in others...but they won't even get that choice if no one ever points out a problem.

To exit the analogy: Popular does not equal quality, and it certainly doesn't render the idea of quality irrelevant. The argument that "well, it doesn't matter if it's good or bad because the audience doesn't care, so why should the creators?" is something I fundamentally cannot agree with, as a media critic. I can understand the thought process, but my job is to ignore it and think critically about the quality of the work anyway. Because it still matters. Someone somewhere is gonna see it eventually.

One day there will be someone in that 'different kind of audience' who suddenly feels dissatisfied with a romance book they thought they would love, and wonders why --> that is what critics are for.
One day there will be someone who usually writes tons of cheap, easy romance successfully and has a fun time doing it, but suddenly decides they want to write a romance with a little more depth that can reach a different audience --> that is also what critics are for. Someone has to be able to tell them something other than "the audience doesn't care, so why bother"; to allow them to diversify their skillset.

Basically, I don't think this response is much of a counter-argument. ^^; It kinda glosses over the fact that well-written romances exist and also have an audience that cares about how they're written...just because a lot of romance fans like slop doesn't mean that's all the genre needs to be.

Hot take, but I do. ^^; I've made dozens of posts complaining about boring/offensive shonen tropes; and I actively avoid the genre because of how lazily it's usually written on top of that. I don't look down on people who enjoy it; but I know I would ABSOLUTELY NOT enjoy it so I stay out of it. Most of what I know about it is what I get secondhand from similar tropes in RPGs...which is painful enough for me, thanks...

...I understand that a lot of complaints about romance and romance writing are just thinly veiled misogyny, so I can't blame you for drawing this comparison, but I wanted to make it clear that that's not what's going on here. I don't dislike romance, and I don't dislike genres aimed at girls and women. I just dislike bad writing.

No

...I feel like we may just have different perspectives on media as a whole, or at least a different way of putting things. Nevertheless, I feel a sort of disclaimer is in order here:

I'll admit that I'm naturally a harsh critic; my feelings about media that disappoints me are very acute, and most of the time they come out that way. Personally, as long as I'm not trying to attack, disparage, and humiliate an actual person, I don't think there's anything wrong with that-- you can disagree, but that is the reason I write the way I do.

Because at the end of the day, these things are just my opinions and that's how I view them. If I say something is "pathetic" it's because that's how I feel about the content of the writing, not because I think the writer is a pathetic human being.
Similarly, when I say that "most writers can't write" I don't mean that most writers should be discouraged from writing, or should somehow not be allowed to write. I just mean that most writers don't write well. =/

In my eyes, that's a neutral statement...particularly because writing doesn't actually have to be good to be enjoyable. I've enjoyed and loved many things that weren't written well, or just weren't written well enough for what they were trying to accomplish. Sure, maybe I'd like them more if they were better...but I will unabashedly admit that they aren't written well while still rating them highly or recommending them to others, based solely on how much fun I had. So while you saw that as a grave insult and a condemnation...I just saw it as a simple truth.

I know expressing negative opinions and emotions without dissolving into toxicity is difficult and rare on the internet...but some of us still do it, just FYI. What I wrote wasn't meant to hurt anyone, "talk down to them", or make them want to quit writing. Not once in that whole rant did I say that poorly-written romances should not exist, or that people who write them and read them should not exist. I was just dissatisfied with a thing and explained why.