So how love works for me (just my personal experience, and from talking with others, especially men, I'm kinda unusual)...
There are two different types of love that I feel (three if you include familial love, four if you include my general love for all humanity). :-)
One type of love that I'll call friendship love is mostly a growing feeling - the longer & more I know someone and am friends with them, the more I care about them, the more I want good for them, the more I am willing to go out of my way to help them or hang out with them. I have some friends where it grows more quickly than with others, because of aligned values and interests, but this love is on a continuum, rather than being discrete. However, this isn't a really romantic love, and I wouldn't say that I am 'in love' with my friends - but I still feel like this friendship love is a very important aspect of my life. :-)
The other type of love that I experience that I'll call 'click' love is an all-or-nothing, all-encompassing, overwhelming connection with the person. It happens to me on average every 1-2 years, and I know it from my first significant interaction with the person (although often, I've had non-significant interactions with them before - been to the same conferences/events, etc - so it's not really 'love at first sight'). This is a romantic love, but it's also a friendship love, and a familial love, and an unconditional deep caring and wanting the best for them and their life. If I were more spiritual, I would say that I had had previous lives with these people, or had some karmic destiny with them, or something, because of how intense and immediate the feeling is. Usually the other person feels some sort of connection as well, although not necessarily as intense, and sometimes more on a friendship/interesting person basis than an all-encompassing and somewhat romantic basis. Sometimes it leads to a relationship, sometimes to a deep friendship, and sometimes to just a friendship. Whatever happens, I would say that I both love and am in love with these people. While this love is romantic in a way, and if they wanted a relationship, I would be very open to it at least on an emotional level (if not on a practical or rational level), it's not only a romantic feeling - overall, I just want them to be happy, and if being with someone else makes them happier and more productive and more able to live the life that they want to live, then that's what I want and I'm happy for them (yay for mirror neurons and compersion!) :-)
Some of my friends have argued that this 'click' love that I feel is actually infatuation or lust, but I don't think that it is given that it's not just, or even mainly, a physical attraction, as well as how long it lasts (it may ebb & flow as we live closer or further or get busier, or I may have rational/lifestyle reasons to not be in a relationship with them, but the love & connection never goes away, or at least hasn't for over 10+ years).
As far as more general attraction, I am attracted to people in five ways...
1) Physical. There are some men that are just incredibly physically attractive to me - this is what I think of as lust. If I see them across the room, I get turned on ;-) Sometimes they are tall, dark, & handsome - sometimes not. I can be very physically attracted to someone without necessarily being attracted to them in other ways (although usually the more I find out about them as a person, the less I am attracted to them physically if we aren't aligned in other areas). This attraction is on a continuum, and as mentioned, can vary a bit (but not a lot) depending on other variables - I can also find a guy more physically attractive if I'm attracted to him in other realms.
2) Intellectual/Interesting. There are people that I find to be very interesting - in how they think, in what they're doing, in how they're creating change. I am attracted to their minds and their curiosity and their initiative. This is the way that I am attracted to many of my friends and acquaintances. I enjoy conversations with them, and working with them on projects. This attraction is also on a continuum, and can vary, up or down, sometimes a lot, as I learn more about a person and spend more time with them. It is not really affected by my physical attraction to them or my emotional attraction to them.
3) Emotional/Comfortable. There are people who I am extremely comfortable with, who I can talk to about anything, who I know will be there for me and who I will be there for them. I am attracted to their emotional stability and their usually happy and/or optimistic state. This attraction is again on a continuum, isn't really affected by my physical or intellectual attraction to the person, and can vary, up or down, as I see the person in more situations and exhibiting more emotional states.
4) The 'Click'. There are a few people that I experience that immediate connection with, the 'click' love that I talked about above. This is pretty much a binary, all-or-nothing attraction, which greatly influences the other areas of attraction. If I 'click' with someone, I immediately feel extremely comfortable with them and emotionally attracted to them. The guys that I tend to click with are already fairly intellectual/interesting, but the 'click' makes them even more intellectually attractive to me than they normally would be. And it also raises my physical attraction to them, although not quite in the same way as a pure physical attraction (there are a few guys that I am more physically attracted to than the men that I click with - the guys that I click with, I am attracted to them as a whole, rather than as their parts). The 'click' also means that I see their 'bad habits' or 'annoying things' as cute or endearing or quirky, or I see the positive side of it. For example, I love hearing a certain person's slight snoring - even if it's keeping me awake, it makes me smile, because it means that he's actually sleeping and getting the rest that he needs. :-)
5) Similar Lifestyle Desires. Last, but not least, I am attracted to some people because they want to live the same type of life that I want to (either presently or in the future, aka wanting to have a family while also doing meaningful work, etc). This is mostly on a continuum, although the wanting to have kids or not is kinda a binary point in that continuum. If this attraction is high, then it's likely that my intellectual/interesting attraction to them is also high, but the similar lifestyle attraction doesn't really correlate with physical or emotional attraction. And unfortunately it hasn't yet correlated well with the 'click' - in the past, I've clicked with men who don't necessarily want the same relationship or total life package as I want unfortunately.
I sometimes wonder if this 'click' love is a necessary part of a good, long-lasting relationship for me. It certainly feels like it is – it makes a world of difference in how much I want to be with a person. I do have several friends who I find to be all-around attractive: physically and intellectually and emotionally - but it is still qualitatively different than how I feel about the men that I 'click' with. But yet, I haven't 'clicked' with someone who likes me back in a relationship way and also has similar future lifestyle desires. If I am to believe this post - http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2013/01/07/how-to-pick-a-husband-if-you-want-to-have-kids/ - then I should stop thinking about the 'click' and just focus on the other attraction areas, especially the lifestyle desires. But that feels too planned, too forced, too rational - and love isn't rational! :-)
