I vaguely remember my first introduction to The Hobbit, through the BBC radio dramatisation—a spectacular 8-episode series that my friends had on tape. We listened to it on long car trips, enthralled by the adventures of Bilbo, Gandalf, and the Dwarves. Years later, I fell just as much in love with The Lord of the Rings, so different in tone and yet still a story in which small, seemingly insignificant people find their courage through impossible situations and support their friends, emotionally and practically, through dangerous adventures.
In neither story did romance take a major role, and at the time, I did not question it.