Okay so far, but..
The romance part is easy to figure out...
No it isn't. Not at all. Romance is utterly different from friendship. All those things you mentioned are necessary, but, romance requires *something else* besides.
I'm assuming you're male. Any woman worth marrying won't be upset if you're not experienced........and I'm talking about the 'romance'......not sex (God made that part for marriage only, and any 'experience' beforehand is harmful to a marriage and needs to be overcome......fortunately for us, neither my husband nor I came to our marriage with that 'experiences' to overcome).
Neither of us dated much........but did enough to know that its artificiality doesn't prepare you one bit for marriage, and we both strongly feel that it was our friendships.....honest, deep friendships with members of the opposite sex that prepared us better for our own courtship and marriage.
We didn't have any trouble with 'romance' because we cared about each other, treated each other with respect, talked about everything under the sun, including our shared values, life goals, and faith in Jesus Christ, and then fell deeply (and quickly) in love, and not incidentally, are still mad about each other 27 years later.
Dating other people beforehand was almost completely irrelevant to our relationship......then, and now. And I think you'll find that to be true of others who have done the same.