Yeah, the best romance definitely happens when there are other things driving the characters' decisions. (It makes them complex and multi-faceted!)

Yeah, so much of gender-swap fanfic is just... kind of half-heartedly or poorly done to start with, since few people really explore the question of "how would this person be different as a different gender", so when it's obviously done for no other reason than to turn something into romance, it's just :|. Not fooling anybody.

It's really weird and sad how rare good female friendships can be even in fiction targeted at women!