There's a huge huge difference between having a romance story and "shipping"
Shipping is fan made theories about who's boning or going to bone. Romance is Romance
Shipping is just on the level of waifu-ism to me, and I think it gets a huge pass among regular media consumers as being harmless, but it fucks with a community like ive never seen before. The drama also lasts forever.
But still, even if romances are done poorly, then that's just horrid writing, which is pretty par for the course for Naruto. (I dont mind people enjoying Naruto even though I absolutely loathe it) Like, Kishimoto is a terrible writer, do you honestly think he'd be able to do romances well? He can barely write a functioning plot