By Mary Jo
I once read an article that asked how many of your friends' husbands you could imagine yourself with. It was an interesting question, because I realized the answer is “practically none.” Don’t get me wrong—my friends have great husbands, men who I enjoy and respect and value. But can I imagine myself with them? Mostly, no. And I’m sure the reverse is also true—they might like me, but see me as a mate? Not hardly.
So what is love? What is going to make one man the person we want to spend our lives with? What combination of personality, physical appeal, and position in life is going to make a potential mate irresistible? (Note: Though I’m aiming this toward females, of course the pronouns can all be changed.)
As mature adults, we tend to have a good idea of what works for us or what doesn’t, whether it’s clothing choices or potential partners. When we’re young, things aren’t so clear. A chicklit novel that I particularly enjoyed played with this as the heroine meets a variety of eligible men, and each one is at least briefly considered. Is this The One?
By the end of the book, the heroine has found her keeper, but in the course of the story, she meets a variety of possible mates. Pairing off with any one of them would take her along a different path.
When we’re young, life is full of possibilities. Just choosing a college can take you in unknown directions. I chose my university because everyone in the family went 
there (and they offered a full tuition scholarship.) I didn’t know that in my junior year, I’d discover industrial design, change my major from English, and end up becoming a professionala designer. Few colleges have industrial design programs, so going somewhere else would have changed my career path for sure. (I still might hand ended up a writer, but many, many other things, including my romantic life, would have been different.)
Which college you go to makes a huge difference romantically because you’re meeting a whole different pool of potential partners. Go to State and maybe you’ll
meet and marry a clever, banjo playing biology grad student and spend your summers at the laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. (This is not a bad direction. <g>)
Go to a small religious run school and maybe you’ll end up a minister, or a minister’s 
wife, and spend a life oriented to spirit and service. (And have whole congregations judging your housekeeping and your childrearing.) Go to law school, and you may collect a lawyer as well as a law degree. (This can mean a great house in a great neighborhood, but also some fiercely analytical arguments for the rest of your days!)
In early adulthood, the mating instinct is tremendously strong and absorbs huge amounts of time and mental energy. The hunt may manifest as going to bars and 
trolling for sex, or trying to sit next to that cute bearded guy in Victorian lit, or endlessly analyzing a boyfriend’s potential while knitting late at night with one’s girlfriends. The search for a lasting mate is one of the enduring aspects of life, and fiction.
I mustn’t forget the pheromones, those hormones that ring our chimes. There are some people who really appeal, and a lot more who don’t. I think back to college, 
when the mating hunt was at its height, There were so many unrequited passions where one person wanted another who didn’t want them as much (or at all) that it amazes me that any two people ever manage to get married. <G>
Of course, historically marriage was a clearly defined social contract designed for the survival of one’s self and progeny. I once read of a late Victorian working class woman who said that she had a good marriage because “’e give me ‘is paycheck every week and ‘e don’t beat me.” And he’d probably say he had a good wife because she fed him well, raised their kids, and maintained a comfortable household. The criteria were clearer in those days!
Now we want it all—a partner who is sexy, affectionate, a great companion, loyal and 
reliable, and a reasonably good provider. No wonder the divorce rate is high!
This may all seem a wee bit digressive <g>, but it’s leading me toward the heart of the romance genre: writing characters who seem utterly right for each other. I don’t find books where the romance is purely hormonal to be terribly satisfying. It’s all very well to see someone across a crowded room and think, “That woman there. I must have her!”
This can happen in real life in real life, of course. It even happened to me once—a man did indeed see me across a crowded room and decide he had to meet me. The subsequent relationship was brief, but it was fun while it lasted, and it’s nice to know that at least once, a man reacted to my rather average appearance that way. <G>
In the romance genre, pheromones are very important, producing many stunned meetings where someone, usually the hero, is entranced by his first sight of the heroine. This is great fun to read, and female readers like to feel that feminine power of being able to generate fierce attraction in a man. But four hundred pages of “He/she is so hot! I gotta jump his/her bones RIGHT NOW” is limited, to say the least.
Attraction is just the beginning of the romance. Next comes the hard part. How do these people talk to each other? Even though they might seem very different, are they on the same verbal wavelength? Do they share a sense of humor? (Kissing might not last, but laughter can.) Humor is essential in Georgette Heyer romances—look at Venetia, Black Sheep, Faro’s Daughter, just for starters. ( http://georgetteheyer.com/ ) In all of those stories, humor (or rather, humour <g>) is the unexpected bridge that connects to disparate people who on the face of it aren’t at all right for each other.
Beyond humor, what about this hero is unique and utterly captivating? What 
distinguishes him from every other tall, dark, cranky duke? What about this heroine makes her stand out from all the other feisty maidens with kissable lips and heaving bodices? (That's Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy to the right, in case you haven't seen this version of Pride and Prejudice. I love the tenderness of that image.)
I could pick up books by any of the Wenches and show passages where true love is demonstrated beyond all doubt. (That’s why we’re all romance writers, after all. <g>) In my book Uncommon Vows, which I think of as my ‘subversion of the captivity fantasy’, it becomes clear that the obsessive, possessive hero truly loves 
the heroine when he allows her to leave him because he recognizes that if she won’t stay of her own free will, she’ll never truly be his.
I remember a romance where the heroine was a mining engineer, and the hero loves her blunt nails and work hardened hands because they illustrate the kind of smart, competent woman she is. Or Jennifer Crusie’s delightful Bet Me, where the hero loves to eat and encourages the heroine to enjoy food rather than try to force herself to be skinnier than nature intended. 
( http://www.jennycrusie.com/ )
It’s the particular that makes a romance memorable—the uniqueness of the characters, the specifics of their relationship. What romances do you love because the characters seem so utterly right for each other? What kinds of details make them seem in harmony, capable of bonding forever and beyond? Or what makes you think they’ll split up ten minutes after the book ends?! I’d love to know!
Mary Jo, showing two lovers from the San Diego zoo. (If you have a moment, click on the image to enlarge it. They're really sweet.)