Don't expect an appropriate answer to any of your questions in this "FAQ"!
When it comes to romance no question has one simple answer, but many
different answers.  It all depends very much on the persons involved.
Yet you can find many interesting ideas that could inspire your creativity.
Try to adapt them to your individual needs/tastes/styles/characters/cultures
or better try to invent something new!

Contrary to other subjects a FAQ on romance can't be a list of objective
questions and answers that everyone can agree on.
This "FAQ" is largely composed of quotes from different people's postings.
It isn't just a sterile list of questions and answers that doesn't reflect
the authors' personality and passion, but a mixture of various ways of
advice giving.
Always remember that this "FAQ" doesn't contain eternal truths, but just
the opinions of the authors!  Feel encouraged to disagree!  Don't take
everything seriously!

Some things to remember when posting to alt.romance:
* Feel free to ask questions that already are in this "FAQ"!
  There will always be some answers that can NOT be found in a short FAQ
  on the delicate subject of romance...
* If you want to prove how smart you are please post the most useful, most
  empathizing advice instead of the most biting flame!
* If you need to post something that has nothing to do with romance please
  consider setting the "Followup-To:" line to more appropriate newsgroup(s)!
* Advice on posting to Usenet can regularly be found in news.announce.newusers.
* Don't post personal ads!  There are more appropriate newsgroups for that,
  for example alt.personals.ads or soc.personals.
* Don't ask for penpals here!  Such requests should go to soc.penpals.
* Don't post chain letters / pyramid schemes! That's illegal in most countries.
  You and your postmaster might be flooded with complaints and your "Wanted"
  poster be added to <http://www.usps.gov/websites/depart/inspect/wantmenu.htm>
* Don't post commercial advertisements!  You will not only get flooded with
  complaints and risk losing your account - you even risk getting on various
  blacklists <http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/blacklist.html>
  More about advertising on Internet can be found in news.announce.newusers.
* If you want to complain about inappropriate postings, please do so via
  e-mail, but don't mailbomb!  You might hit an innocent newbie who left
  the terminal unattended or someone who is the victim of a forged posting...
  The Net Abuse FAQ (posted to news.admin.net-abuse.misc and other groups)
  <http://www.cybernothing.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq.html>
  explains how to detect the most simple forgeries.  Better read it before
  you send a complaint to postmaster@where.abuse.apparently.came.from


Thanks to all who contributed to this "FAQ" by posting interesting articles
and making helpful suggestions!

Any comments and suggestions for improvements are welcome!