What About Romance?

Romance and love at first sight are integral to our fantasies about mate selection. We love to hear stories about how people fall in love. We love the notion of two people gazing across a crowded room, eyes meeting, and love is in bloom. More often than not these people are in lust, not love. But this is not to say it cannot happen. However, it is unlikely.
More often love grows between two people who have a common connection. It is the common connection that binds us, love then blooms in the soil of mutual interest, mutual respect, and friendship. An intentional strategy for mate selection can increase the odds of this happening.
Think, for example, of the process we go through in selecting our "dream house." First we develop an idea of what we are looking for: one story, Mediterranean style, four bedrooms, large yard, in a particular geographic area, near schools, etc. We establish a price range. We may even get quite specific, because, after all, we will be spending a lot of time and money in this house. We want to insure, as best possible, that we will be happy in it. (Yet when it comes to choosing a mate we will go to a bar and hope we get lucky.)
Next we contact a real estate agent and tell the agent our requirements. We also drive around various neighborhoods on our own, read magazines and newspapers, make inquiries; in short we do our homework. Then the agent begins to show us around. Not infrequently we may spend many months and view many houses, sometimes hundreds of houses and even years, depending upon our particular preferences. All along the way we are collecting information and fine tuning our choices.
Finally, one day, we step out of the agent's car and find ourselves standing in front of our dream house; it's love at first sight! And that's what we will tell people. We eliminate the fact that we spent many hours, months, years, looking, searching, and refining before the "dream house." A similar approach should be used for mate selection. Only with mate selection it is even more difficult since the mate has to choose you as well, whereas the house does not.