Growing up with brothers and sisters has a lot to do with learning to interact with the opposite sex as equals during the courting process, too. The only child is often a bit more entitled/demanding and less sensitive, IMHO.
Courage is important. The snoozer looses.

On the other hand, there's an old story of a wealthy young man who was considering marrying one of 3 women, but he was worried his wife might squander his hard earned wealth. So he gave each $1000 to see what they would do with the money.
The first bought herself a lot of jewelry and clothes and got nothing for him.
The second bought an equal amount of similar stuff for her and him.
The third invested the money and made a significant profit, then treated both to something nice with that profit..
Which one did he marry?
The one with the biggest boobs.

It is easy to joke about romantic love. These are cynical times and the belief in romantic love is rare to discover. Rand says a Hero seeks out another Hero. Not easy to find but it's a start. For this to be valid, the seeker first has to believe in him or herself as a hero. Interaction over time will confirm the seeker's judgment. Keeping in mind you are not likely to find John Galt, but much more likely to find Hank Reardon. One can be a hero and still have flaws. I don't know if there is such a person as an unflawed non-hero - possibly a saint in the biblical sense. Man O Man would that ever be a bore!

I'm dusting off the rust, since I've been with my hero-wife 60 years. We've been high, low, at each other's throats but living without one another is absolutely unimaginable.

My thinking is along the likes of MichaelAa and blarman. People tend to fall in love with people in their proximity; people in their proximity often have similar backgrounds and beliefs. Even it the people in your proximity do not reflect your philosophy, you will be drawn to 'someone'...because that is hard-wired into us.

I have read (and can recommend) the book Blink (I think I got a lead to this book here in the Gulch). It talks about fast decision making and how accurate such decisions are. Going with your 'first 10 sec impression' is actually a functional plan.

Jan

1) Initial attraction is sexual.
2) Long term requires a very similar hierarchy of values which requires both of you to place a higher value on reason than on emotions. Not easy but doable.

If anyone here could definitively answer that, they could put every dating service in the world out of business. Making themselves extremely wealthy at the same time.

With any relationship involving two people you can't quantify the why's exactly from outside, only they can. And even their answers are subjectively theirs, their partner's are likely to be very different even though they share the relationship in common.

From a man's perspective, there are three criteria. First is looks; it's the first thing you see about the person, and if she looks good, then you'll consider the rest. Second is intelligence. It can get really boring if she has no clue about what you're saying. Third is personality. Are her values, beliefs and behaviors compatible with yours? If so, then she's a keeper.

SarahM: This is a powerful subject... more often than not motivated by the subliminal. I had a professor/writer that stated, "You can love more than one person at any given time but you cannot be 'in-love' with more than one person at the same time." That the act of being in-love is exclusive to the beloved and an utterly personal journey where one is catapulted into a world of heightened sensation, where colors are more brilliant and the senses are exaggerated in smell, in touch, all of them, with the object of your desire at the center- all consuming. Our positive images are exalted and we feel energized beyond our known capacity, passionate and optimistic, limitless even. Yet too, our negative images of ourselves are brought to the forefront and we war with them, at once terrified to lose that which we know we cannot live without...
Possessiveness raises it head and jealousy burns holes through our matrix and we know we will start to unravel...
There is an absolute need to enter the mind of the beloved, (what do you believe, what do you want from life, what do you need, etc.), and the all encompassing urgency to possess the body of the beloved because only this, this need to crawl inside that which we have identified as the counterpart of ourselves, then and only then do we know that we are not alone. This ancient elemental force that pulls us into this union of mind and body where we are at once magnified and multiplied by the bonding of the 'two', life affirming, where we are made whole but not wholly by the other.

AR: “ One falls in love with the embodiment of the values that formed a person’s character, which are reflected in his widest goals or smallest gestures, which create the style of his soul—the individual style of a unique, unrepeatable, irreplaceable consciousness. It is one’s own sense of life that acts as the selector, and responds to what it recognizes as one’s own basic values in the person of another.”

Sex.

So much to consider: One study confirmed that the skimpier the clothes a young woman wore at a dance club, the more likely she was to be ovulating.
There are lots of books and studies of your topic.

As I've aged and seen relationships formed and broken around me (relatives, friends, etc.), my question is why people are and remain attracted to those who do not treat them well or even abuse them.
Particularly, people get unhappy, divorce, and find someone else on whom to dump their baggage, and another unhappy relationship ensues..
So the question to ask is not, "what's wrong with you," but, "what's wrong with me that I keep finding and establishing intimate relationships with people like you."
If you truly love your self, then you should find a mate with that same characteristic. Be choosy; expect the best.

If all else fails you can be [evil grin] scientific about finding a lover and use the Universal Hot-Crazy Matrix for guidance in mate selection. https://youtu.be/hKWmFWRVLlU

Well there's the million dollar question, neh? It's like the question "Why does this art appeal to you?" on steroids.

Initially it's physical attraction - like when you see this person from across the room and your sneakers melt onto the floor. Something I think people miss is that in addition to all of the physical beauty elements - individuality, facial symmetry, that all-important 0.7 hip/waist ratio (if you're talking about a man observing a woman,) muscles or boobage, etc. - every person expresses a part of their personality in a physical way, some more so than others: the way a person carries him/herself, the way they move, can convey an amazing amount of information about a person's personality, even in the first split second of seeing someone new.

In the second half of that split second, the mind (or mine, at any rate,) does a lightning-fast go / no-go correlation with one's own values. It's still just an initial, visual appraisal, but people generally short-change the value of, and the mind's ability to make, that split-second appraisal. I remember David Kelley talking about people having a "love at first sight" experience with Rand's philosophy, remarking that (I paraphrase,) "Generally you have to learn a little more about... the beloved, before knowing whether it's the real thing."

I've had both the experience of meeting someone whose physical appearance, mannerisms and body language were incredibly accurate indicators of that lady's personality, validated thoroughly after-the-fact, and the experience of meeting someone who projects a personality that turns out to be nothing like the actual fact as evaluated later. The former is far more the case than the latter, but the latter is also possible. So "love at first sight" is generally accurate, but still a crapshoot.

Something I came to realize just a couple of years ago - from a television show, of all things - is that more than anything else I am in love with: goodness. That begs the question of defining the "good," but there is a projection of benevolence - or lack of it - that every person does, whether they try to or not, and which can be neither faked nor concealed. It's something that shows up, invariably, in the eyes.
.

Astoundingly enough, it's the first 30 seconds that make all the difference in the world. It's that first look that starts everything else. What strikes the fancy is still under study, but it is this concept that made speed dating an uncommonly effective matchmaking facilitator.

I don't believe romantic love exists except as a kind of self-delusion.

Sarah, I have fallen hard and fast only once in 66 years, with
the woman who introduced me to Ayn Rand, who is still a friend.
of mine -- and she was stunning in 3 ways::: mental power,
physical presence, and style. . the way she spoke to me in
conversation showed that she could think fast with precision.
finding that in a very attractive woman who "carried herself"
in a fashion which showed self-respect and self-confidence
just "got me."

the distinguishing factor with her was the coincidence
of these three factors -- which I had considered impossible.

we never got physical, and had only a couple of dates.
it was just a friendship, for her -- a strong one, but that
was all it was.

the friendship, however, is permanent. . my obsession over
her lasted 23 years. . I grew out of it.

I proposed marriage to three women, in my life, and two said yes.

these three also "hit me" with those coinciding factors,
but more slowly. . the first was unseen at first, playing a piano
behind a screen in the university student center. . the second
was a co-worker. . and one was a medical secretary
at my doctor's office. . strong mental impression, with physical
attraction, and style. . style suitable for a mountain-man
engineer like me, you know;;; not Style.

generalizing::: the mental match complemented by physical
attraction, supplemented by a style match does it for me.

if she hits the bull's eye, so to speak, I will lose it, over her.

it is all subjective, in my humble opinion. . and I am the older
of two kids (have a wonderful younger sister), but generally
a private kind of person. . I hope that this helps. -- john
.

MichaelAarethun, WHAT kind of dream world are
you living in?!!!

There is a language problem because we use the same word to mean "real" love we feel for another person (including our parents, kids, siblings, friends), and "falling in love" which is just sexual attraction. They are two very different things. A good relationship is when you feel both.

Attraction can start in an instant, but almost always fades over time (maybe 7 yrs? to coin a stereotype).
Real love usually grows over time, as we learn more about someone, and the values we see in them grow.

Keeping the two concepts separate helps prevent the apparent conflict of "love" for relatives and friends, including friends on the same gender.

Romantic love is our subjective experience of the drive for immortality. When the "moon hits your eye", it's because your subconscious has assessed the prospective mate and perceives that offspring created with him/her will have a genetic advantage.

In studies of limerence, too, it's found that mutual infatuation is relatively rare. It's usually one partner in that DUHHHH state and the other partner willing to be party to it, because they like the person enough to be willing to mate with them, but from much more of a "loyal friends with benefits" perspective.

For your offspring, your scoring of the best mate means they have higher chance of survival, better access to resources, better access to the best mates when they grow up, and better resources for nurturing offspring produced with their chosen mates. In other words, for you, this confers a level of immortality at a genetic level.

This is what underlies jealousy behaviour - trying to control one's mate and preventing others from getting access to him/her, even that most extreme criminal behaviour of killing a mate if it tries to escape. It's all a genetic strategy aimed at giving one's own line the best advantage. "If I can't have him, nobody else will!"

Sadly, the subconscious is not very good at factoring in more recent factors relating to the species. For example, killing a mate rather than letting them escape will most likely extinguish one's own further reproductive opportunities - there aren't a lot of mating options in maximum security prison.

The annoying thing is that something in our being tends to withhold our best creative energies until or unless we fall into that stupid gah-gah state. Then, we seem to have a muse inspiring us to create the most amazing things. All for the opportunity to pee into the gene pool and transcend the limited span of one's own mortal coil.

Seems as if I've covered all the mentioned bases, but then I've had more time and gone through more cycles than many on this list.
First big one was intellect and spirituality, second was physical, third was just because she was different than everything I was.
I am now pondering - and haven't experienced - actual friendship, which in turn takes me back to the beginning of the cycle.
I'm out of time and energy and money, but the fertile brain marches on.

It's subjective

Rand noted that there are critical differences between friends and lovers.

Holding the same fundamental values is a necessary condition, but is sufficient only for friends. For true love (as Peikoff explains), one should see the other person as representing the sum of his top values, see him as irreplaceable, and see the need for a sexual connection.