It may be a result of what I watch or my definition of realistic, but why does it seem to be that there are never any sort of nearly realistic romance in any of the fictional works I've seen? Does embellishing the story continue so much to the popularity that it is the standard, or is it simply that difficult for writers to create realistic narratives?

You can't write realistic, what you don't experienced yourself 😁 😀

Ever watch Redemption Road? 🤣 The more realistic a writer tries to make a romance, the less desire anyone would have to be part of that romance, so I'm going to answer 'target audience'.