I actually don't think kids these days really worry about girlfriends and boyfriends, most of them find the whole embarassed thing about romances to be funny. Look at Kim Possible, there's a relatively new show that balances its romance and still makes it funny, fresh, and enjoyable.
In fact, I think it's actually helped the series become much better then it used to be now that Kim and Ron are dating. Disney did it quite a few times in their shows. Look at Gargoyles, Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, hell, Tale Spin is based on a REAL LIFE movie genre called "screwball comedies".
Which is a romance type genre, the movie "It happened one night" is a perfect example of that. I actually thought Extreme Ghostbusters had one of the greatest possible romances with the characters Eduardo Rivera and Kylie Griffin. There was some pretty BIG nods towards those two hooking up.
Sadly that show got canned (I really felt it deserved one more season at least) and nothing was ever finished. Animes do have excellent romance set ups but it's most of the older ones that have the best ones, the newer released anime romance couples seem as "computerized" as the animation style their using now.
One of the funniest animes to use in romance is Digimon because there are SOOOOOO MANY possible couples. People who support that show mix and match practically every single character together. Digimon is another good example of how romance in toons can be funny and prove interesting.
The whole triangle with TK, Kari, and Davis provided some of the funniest moments in Digimon 02.
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