Romantic comedy films with happy-ever-after endings have a negative impact on people’s real love lives, according to an Australian survey.

A poll, conducted by Warner Home Video, of 1,000 Australians found almost half said romantic comedies with their inevitable happy endings have ruined their view of an ideal relationship.

One in four Australians said they were now expected to know what their partner was thinking, while one in five respondents said it made their partners expect gifts and flowers ‘just because’.

‘It seems our love of rom-coms is turning us into a nation of ‘happy-ever-after addicts’. Yet the warm and fuzzy feeling they provide can adversely influence our view of real relationships,’ said Australian relationship counsellor, Gabrielle Morrissey.

‘Real relationships take work and true love requires more than fireworks,’ she said.

The survey backs up research published in 2008 by Edinburgh’s Heriot Watt University which showed that “rom-coms” like Notting Hill and When Harry Met Sally are responsible for creating unrealistic expectations of relationships.

They found that improbable happy endings and far-fetched plots were distorting society’s view of romance, creating a false impression that “perfect” relationships are possible.

Rom-coms also oversimplified the process of falling in love and wrongly gave the impression that it could and should be achieved without any effort, the study claimed.

The scientists studied 40 top box office films released between 1995 and 2005, to establish common themes.

They then asked hundreds of people to fill out a questionnaire to describe their beliefs and expectations when it came to relationships.

The psychologists found that fans of films such as You’ve Got Mail, The Wedding Planner and While You Were Sleeping, often failed to communicate with their partners effectively, with many holding the view that if someone is meant to be with you, then they should know what you want without you needing to tell them.

Dr Bjarne Holmes, a psychologist who led the research, said that the team had spent a year “thoroughly analysing” and discovered a number of common themes that were unrealistic.

They included the idea of “the one” soul mate who we were all pre-destined to meet and that they should know us instinctively so well they can “almost read our minds”.

“We all want to be successful in our relationships,” said Dr Holmes. “We want to be the special one and meet the special one. Unfortunately people tend to believe the Hollywood idea of a perfect relationship.