WISH: Love and Romance
It's tough GMing a succesful romance between an NPC and a PC. It can be A beginning relationship involves so much personal "getting to know eachother" time that if the GM takes time away from the other players, the other players feel cheated. If the relationship is to have any depth at all, you have to be able to do this. (I don't do a lot of PBEM roleplaying or "bluebooking", but obviously that would allow for that time.) However, I have seen some fairly successful relationships build between PCs. It's different between two PCs. The players can take the time while a GM is with other players to talk about the more personal things. They can confess their hopes and fears to eachother and in that time the characters can find out if they really are going to like eachother. PC/NPC relationships can rarely take on that kind of depth (in a face-to-face session).

My early gaming groups were usually all guys. In those days, any relationships that characters had were rare and superficial. One of the first games I remember where a relationship meant something was the first Vampire: The Masquerade Game. The GM and I got together and played through the prequel for my character. I was playing an suicidal undercover cop like Mel Gibson's character in the begining of Lethal Weapon. The Brujah (the more violent, rebellious clan of Kindred) took an interest in him and decided to embrace him. The first couple of nights were hell for the character but the clan leader's girlfriend, Alisia (I believe) came to him and comforted him. Later my character saw the clan leader (his name was Juggler) mistreating Alisia. He stood up to Juggler and got beaten down for it. That night, as my character was laying in the pit that the Brujah used as a dungeon, Alisia came and helped him escape. Together the two stole a car and ran. That was the first game, a one on one session with the GM where Alisia and my character (I can't remember his name now) really became full-blown characters. Needless to say, they spent most of the campaign on the run from Juggler and the Brujah. There wasn't much time for the two to just talk to eachother, but in that first session they built the basis that made the rest of the game come alive for me. The characters really cared about eachother and I felt it. When Alisia was in trouble, I remember my (the player's) heart racing a little. I knew that if anything happened to her, my character would return to his old suicidal self and I din't want to play that character. I enjoyed playing the character he had become through his relationship with Alisia.

However, every time I have played in a game where the GM fast forwards through the beginning of the two getting to know eachother, it hasn't worked. Sure, they may be together, but it doesn't mean anything.