romantic (noun, romance): having a wondrous or storybook quality, visionary and idealized. Romantic love belongs to the proceptive phase of a relationship, especially at its onset. Historically, in the songs of the troubadours of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, romantic love stopped short of the acceptive phase of sexual intercourse and marriage, but today there is no strict dividing line.
Dictionary of Sexology Project: Main Index