Books ,,,and Romance

I was reading that beautifully written book called the love of her life by harriet evans, which is about love, hurt, betrayal, friendship, death and facing fears, written in such a way that one just becomes addicted to finishing it. Looking at my bookshelf which has more than one of those heartachingly beaytifully written thick romance novels, i realized just how addicted one can become to these kind of books....but why is that?is it maybe because we are missing that kind of love and friendship in the real life, is it because the characters of our books are flawless(because they are not)and always get their happy ending?or is maybe because we have given up on real and honest love in the real life and have submitted ourselves to being content with the characters, scenes and the lifes being drawn in our pages, living with them in their imaginative world instead of our reality.Now you could argue, a friend of mine insists that there is nothing called the "big love" like its being presented in books and movies, that love has just become another cliche, a commercialized merchandise,one of those elements which are an extra in a relationship not a basic.(is that true?)
Another friend of mine on the other hand believes that every romantically written book is based on a long honest and suffering experience, a faithful believer in romance,following the: love will come to you when you are ready for it, she would never ever read a romance where the ending doesnt turn out to be happy one, reading the last page at first helps;).(if thats not romantic:))
so what is it really?why do we have such a craving for romances why do we keep reading them although sometimes we know that nothing similar could possibly happen on our doorstep.How come we read books only to start imagining what might or might not happen to us, as if the pages of that book, fire up an illusional dream in us and give us a renewed hope, a renewed sense of optimism that everything might turn out the way we wish for after all.
Why does every, and each one of us knowingly or subconciously wish and dream to be THAT katy, or that lizzie, or that nicole,,,why do we say we dont believe in love that we dont trust in it, when at the same time we keep reading the perfect love scenarious? Are we making everything harder for ourselves on purpose, are we confronting ourselves with the perfect lives only to compare them and minimilize ours in comparison?is that why we are so hypocritical about love and love books??maybe it is,,,maybe we keep reading them, because its wishful thinking ,,,and maybe its because we have already stopped believing that the perfect love will show up in our life, maybe we are just trying to make ourselves feel better by blaming that xy book cover and saying: "see that never ever happened or will happen to me...."