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Romantic love can be returned or unrequited. In the former case, the mutual expressions of love can lead to marriage or to the establishment of a permanent relationship, which in most cases will include passionate sexual love. Where the love is one-sided (unrequited), the result can be damaging to the self-esteem and/or the psychological welfare of the spurned lover.

One aspect of romantic love is the randomness of the encounters which lead to love. It may be for this reason that some in Western society have historically emphasized romantic love far more than other cultures in which arranged marriages are the tradition. However, the globalization of Western culture has spread Western ideas about love and romance.

Romantic love became a culturally recognized passion during the Middle Ages, when in some cases insurmountable barriers of morality or convention separated lovers. The effect of physical attraction and the impossibility of intimacy often resulted in the lover experiencing an excessive regard of the beloved as extremely precious. Winning the love, or at least the attention, of the beloved motivated great efforts of many kinds, such as poetry, song, or feats of arms.

In more modern times, romantic love has been the theme of art and entertainment in all its forms. Some of the greatest poetry (e.g. Shakespeare's sonnets), opera (e.g. La Boheme), and literary prose (e.g. Pride and Prejudice) has romantic love as its main theme. Similarly much popular culture, from theatre to film to popular music, has romantic love at its heart. However, it has not been without its critics. Virginia Woolf called Middlemarch one of the few English novels for "grown up people" given its pessimistic portrayal of marriage.

Properties of romantic love purported by Western culture include:

It must take you by surprise (be the result of a random encounter).
It cannot be easily controlled.
It is not overtly (initially at least) predicated on a desire for sex as a physical act.
If requited, it may be the basis for a lifelong commitment.
As above mentioned, though it is widely believed that romantic love relationships are unique to Western culture, they may be found in various cultures, although they may appear in forms/styles which Western people would not immediately recognise.

One of the oldest romantic serenades was written in Arabic in Iran, and there are diaries written in 12th century Japan in which people expressed their emotional and passionate feelings towards loved ones. One famous Hyakunin-ishu - the collection of the poems - reads: "even I suppress my feelings to her, it appears too obvious to others as asked if there is anything wrong with me..."

Due to globalisation, Western romantic love has become more commonly recognized; many people now identify it as the only form of romantic love.

While romantic love as discussed above is a dream of many, some claim that such love as is depicted in books and movies rarely, if ever, occurs. They point to the modern practice of dating, where often the goal is to have sexual intercourse as soon as possible instead of building a lasting relationship. Often, the rigorous demands of careers in the modern world rob people of the time to find such ideal companions, and mental disorders such as social anxiety disorder prevent people from approaching others.