Why do you love me?

If you have ever been asked the titular question of this post, it's possible that you've had to come up with some lame reason for your significant other.  I have recently been pondering what it means to love someone else, in a romantic sense.  Chances are that the person asking the question does not want to hear the response "because I find you very physically attractive and your facial features are very symmetrical which leads me to believe that you have good, healthy genes and I would like mate with you" or "because you're nice" or "because you're the best I can do" or "because I have self worth issues and the fact that you pay attention to me makes me feel good about myself" or "I don't know, I just do."  These all seem like poor reasons to say you "love" someone to me.  I tried to think of how we (we meaning myself) become involved in relationships that lead to feelings of "love."  The reasons I could think of were: proximity (which with the invention of the Internet is becoming increasingly less necessary), physical attraction, common interests, ability to court one another (appropriate responses in social situation), shared values, and a mutual desire for a relationship.  These all seem kind of shallow, not in a bad sense, it is just a case that these are not really things that I can see as being able to form a deep emotional connection over.  I often feel dumb for begining to form warm feelings for a girl because she's cute and likes the same music/movies as I do or because I see her everyday and we get along well.  So, within the past year or so I have been trying to only be interested in girls with a similar goals for their lives, namely the desire to move to new places for short periods of time.   I guess this falls under the shared values catagory but it has been one that I've overlooked for the most part in the past.  I guess you could say that I'm looking for a traveling companion.  But this also I find to be distracting to my desire to figure out why or if I love someone because I'm focusing on the fact that I could potentially have someone to keep me company on  my journey through life (wow, I'm sorry, that was really fucking cheesy).  Is that all love is?  A person to keep us company?  So we do not become incredibly lonely?

I think I'm only looking at the process of falling in love, I'm really missing the type of love which comes with being with someone for a long time.  Through shared experiences and developing a sense of trust and comfort with that person.  I feel as though these can produce love but how do we get to this point?  I have developed this with many of my friends and yet I have not developed a romantic relationship with them.  Usually based on the preceived change it will bring to our dynamic as friends.  Do I worry about losing the love I share with my friends in exchange for a physical and romantic love?  I think that is a valid concern.

So, I don't think I can combine these two things and therefore I can't find a person whom I "love" in the romantic sense.  Well, I guess I'll just have to stick to empty meaningless sex.  Boohoo me.  (That's a joke, not a very funny one I must add).