Romance is the set of feelings and gestures that say you are chosen: time made, notes left, a hand on a back in a crowd. It can lead to sex and it can live for years with very little sex. Treating romance as only a runway to intercourse flattens both.

Styles differ. Some people want grand plans. Some want the trash taken out without a negotiation. Mismatched styles look like lack of love when they are often lack of translation.

New romance steals sleep and common sense. Older romance looks like a shared grocery list and a joke no one else would get. Both count. If the gestures all died and contempt moved in, that is data, not a cute dry spell.

You can ask for the kind you need. Hinting for six months is a poor delivery system.