Pet Peeve: "I Love You, So I Can't Be With You"

I've read 8-10 books in the past week and am amazed at how many characters in romances suffer doubt over whether to pursue a romance with a person they already respect as a friend and suddenly feel attracted to. I don't mean a few days of balancing the pros and cons, I mean 150 pages of "We can never be together" before they fall into the sack. No tentative dates, no honest discussions about Whether We Should Take the Next Step, just friendship to heartwrenching angst to sex (and usually post-coital fears that Now We've Ruined Everything). Apparently this plot device is not isolated to one "branch" of romance; I've seen it in chick lit, historicals, and contemporaries just in the past week.

I just don't get it. I can understand not wanting to ruin a good friendship, but why don't these characters see that a longstanding friendship is a great basis for a romantic relationship? I guess it just seems to me that a couple with a history of friendship has a greater chance of romantic success (code: not getting divorced) when the day-to-day realities of laundry and financial struggles and the temporary sexual blahs kick in than a couple who have a sudden intense attraction and then get romantically obsessed after a one night stand.

Love, and certainly marriage, is about so much more than the intense physical attraction people experience at the beginning of their sexual relationship, and I really wonder about characters who can't see that friendship is a necessary component of a long-lasting romantic relationship. Are people's ideas about romance and marriage so skewed that they really can't see the basis of a healthy long-term relationship when they are staring it in the face? For the characters in Romance Land, apparently so.