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In any long-running campaign I've run as a GM, I've always allowed romance as an option for players either between party members or between players and NPCs.
We talk about boundaries, and utilize safety tools. I have adult players, playing adult characters.
We either gloss over or fade to black anything too explicit, but otherwise are comfortable roleplaying the courtships, romantic moments and relationship struggles.
After all, what is the point of serialised fiction if not for soap opera hijinx?
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Successfully integrated? Never.
As a GM, I'm not interested in having some romantic story and role play through the lens of our characters with my players.
And in my group, players aren't generally interested in spending significant table time with someone else's romances.
So the most "integration" you get is 2 players agreeing to be romantically interested with each other and maybe a few 1 liners throughout the campaign that goes back to that relationship. Or something similar between a PC and NPC, wherein the GM will confirm that the NPC is available for courting and interested in the PC and there may sometimes be some small relevant stuff as a result of having that relationship, but we don't allow it to significantly alter anything that would happen if the group didn't romance that NPC.
But I think all of that largely depends on how much playtime you have and how much spotlight you give each player, and how much your group prefers to focus on combat/tactical portions of the game versus roleplay. In my group we tend to have limited play time, and generally focus on moving through the APs as quickly as possible. And with combats taking an hour plus to get through on average, we'll have limited role play amongst ourselves if it isn't roleplay that addresses a specific scenario from the AP or campaign. Like if the players need to attend a soiree than we will roleplay saying "Oh, I talk to this person about a thing they're interested in based on my gather information checks, and oh we're wearing these kinds of clothes, or I regale them with tales of our exploits".
But that's it, surface level/high level without getting deep into descriptions.
Each groups tolerance for "speed of play/progress" versus Role play is going to be different and will probably be a bigger point than anything else. But secondarily, it's important to be mindful of what your fellow players are interested in. And generally getting in depth with someone else's romance isn't high on people's list, unless it's a TV show/movie level acting/drama.
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The majority of my PF1 experience has been with Society play, which is ill-suited to any romance plots directly involving PCs. I only gave a handful of my PCs anything resembling a lovelife, and that was strictly offstage during downtime.
I have been in a handful of non-PFS games where one or more PCs acquired a romantic interest, but as others have said, that's very much up to what the players want and are comfortable with. I'm currently in one homebrew campaign where my PC is the one with a romantic subplot. Our party rescued several acolytes of the cleric PC's god, and one, a half-orc, now travels with us to escape her racist hometown and learn from our cleric. She also hero-worships my half-orc fighter, who has been very protective of her from the start due to their shared outsider status. My PC has been careful to not take advantage of her, but they've grown closer over the past few months, and now with winter approaching, it was kind of inevitable that they started sharing a tent. And we mostly leave it at that.
I have been in campaigns where romance was much more prevalent, but most were in other systems. The kind of soap opera nonsense that could easily derail a typical d20 game is the meat and potatoes of (for example) the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG.
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I tend to scatter "romanceable" NPC liberally throughout stuff I GM. Gives me as GM extra plot hooks (if the party stalls, the NPC, either by themselfs or by getting abducted by the BBEG, can move things forward).
In play by post, its easier to do so since you dont take session time for it, in actual play, its not about cringe, its about 3-4 other people not being able to interact with the scene, although I had one from
The bard got romantically involved with a powerful Succubus vasall of Nocticula, they proceeded to have some dates in the prime material, and the other PCs basically strove to make this not be a mass casulty event. Or, in one PCs case, to make it a mass casulty event because the "activity date" was a masquerade in the Chelaxian capital with empress Abrogail in attendance, and that PC hated Cheliax.
It was funny because the bard thought they were busted when Abrogails pit fiend advisor teleported straight next to them, but the Succubus and the pit fiend had an incredibly polite and gregarious chat. Said Succubus was a bit of a contrast to Arueshalae and was Neutral evil, striving to become nascent demon lord of trade, negotiations, contract and ransoms.
I suppose the actual couples could couple their PCs, but that often feels cheesy, cliched, or cringy. Plus, my husband and I would have to play characters that didn't drive each other mad :p
I'm with you, that always feels weird.
My wife and I used to be in a game where 2 of the players were a couple and their characters always coupled... Wife and I always made characters that didn't get along / were always at odds with each other because it was more fun for us.