Before I really dive into this response, I just want to make something clear; I think that people should be able to read whatever they want to read, regardless of age, gender, race, etc. People have different genre preferences, and that's okay. However, I do believe to a certain extent that genres are meant to (and should be) steered towards a specific audience.
YA novels exemplify this better than any other genre. Since they are targeted for a teenage audience, it's a bit strange to see adults reading them. Sure, they're not ALWAYS centered around romance, but we have to admit that 9 times out of 10 they are. I'm sure that adults feel some sort of sentiment towards the teenage romance and emotions, but to a certain degree it almost takes them out of reality entirely.
The relationships are almost too perfect, and that sets people up for disappointment in real life; they expect for boys and girls to be shaped exactly to their liking, but that's not how life works. Relationships don't start wrapped up with a cute bow and continue to go along without any problems (although I guess you could count love triangles as "problems", even though it's usually two hot guys fighting with tooth and nail over the girl). It's become a common theme in social media and people in my generation to assume that guys will always know the right thing to say and have a spectacular date planned out; the reality is that boys don't have the money or telepathy to know what a girl wants from him. This leads to bad dates and girls who can never really fall in love because the guy they're looking for doesn't exist.
To me, it doesn't matter who is writing a YA or who reads it; the fact of the matter is that the obsession with the genre come from a fascination with a dream date that doesn't exist and a relationship that won't come out exactly the way they want it to. It's fine to dream, but at some point you have to get your head out of the clouds and realize that things aren't always exactly the way you planned.
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