It goes back even further to the Mary Tyler Moore Show. I always thought that my sister believed that a handsome new guy would show up every week with a bouquet of roses for her.
Then, decades later, I heard MTM herself say that the reason for her break-up with Grant Tinker was that she compared her "boring" home life with the exciting life of her character on the show.
Despite MTM’s character of Mary Richards having girl-next-door good looks and being single, I always found her character rather boring and asexual. Considering her status, she didn’t date that much and seemed kind of disinterested in the opposite sex at times. She wasn’t confident and was rather quirky. I enjoyed the character and show, but the character was an odd one to me. Now Rhoda on the other hand, was very fun and real. I would have been friends with Mary Richards, too, but Rhoda always seemed like she would have been a good, loyal bud and been someone to have good laugh with.