I will happily confess to being a hopeless romantic. I adore romance novels – the more romantic and passionate, the better. I love to curl up and watch a romantic movie. I’d choose watching Phantom of the Opera over Stomp in the West End any day.

I’ve been this way as long as I can remember. As a tiny girl, I was enchanted by romantic fairy stories in books and told by my governess. By my teens I was devouring passionate French novels, and sighing dreamily over Hollywook hunks on the big screen. And as soon as I realised that with nothing more than a pen and paper I could create my own wonderfully romantic worlds in which both I and others could escape, I had found my raison d’être.

I know that I am not alone in my ardent romanticism. But according to a survey (http://www.livescience.com/23290-belief-in-tv-romances-could-hurt-your-love-life.html) whose results were published recently, the fact that I’m ‘a sucker for romantic shows and movies like Pretty Woman’ means I’m less likely to be committed in a relationship: ‘The participants who had higher belief in TV romance were less likely to be committed to their current relationships and more likely to be drawn to alternatives to their current partner, the research found. (Alternatives included a different partner or being single.)’ There is a suggestion that people who ‘buy into’ romance as portrayed in the media are less likely to have successful relationships.

I’m not convinced. Clearly, I’m very happy to sigh over Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. But I’m also very happily married. I think if you asked most people – women in particular – whether reading romance novels and watching romantic programmes and films boosts their romance or created false ideals that then damage their relationship, the vast majority would say that romance is a good thing for their relationship. After all, don’t we love to watch a romantic movie with a partner on a date? Doesn’t this make us starry eyed and put us in the mood for an end-of-the-evening kiss?

More to the point, I think you would have a hard time convincing any person who is romantic to the core to be more of a realist – to dream less, hope for less, be more practical – to decide the light moving across the night sky is a Boeing 747 rather than a shooting star. Being romantic is a way of life; you can’t change it, and nor would you want to. In fact, the very idea that romance should be toned down sounds like a plot device in a romantic story – the heroine believes in true love, but the world is telling her to get real. What ending do you prefer: she gives up on true love, or she ignores those who are telling her to change, perseveres and gets that happy-ever-after?