Not difficult, yet for most hard to do: you've got to love yourself first. Find happiness on your own so you don't need another to fill a void. As long as you have a void you won't find love. Not the kind of love ppl dream about.

Thing is, the love and relationships ppl dream about is an interdependent relationship, yet most people cannot be interdependent, but are co-dependent. Meaning they can't get what they dream of because they themselves aren't a match for what they want.
So work on yourself, get empowered, happy, love yourself, have something going for yourself.
The right partner that will suit you will be there, he/she'll turn up is if by magick.

Keeping that relationship requires continuing doing the above, meaning you don't make the relationship the center of your universe (esp women are good at that)
And you have got to learn to communicate properly and steer clear from the typical 'blame game'.
It does help a lot if you understand at least a bit about the differences between men and women. But if you're empowered in your masculinity/femininity it should kind of sort itself out nicely.

Amen to that.
If the chemistry is right, my god its mindblowing.
You will know when you sense it..an incredible sense of at ease.

Men think sex is romance. Woman think romance is romance. If men can think with there brain and align with their partner then things generally start taking off. Good communication is vital.

I don't agree with the "men think sex is romance" thing as stated, but I do agree in a general way that there are differences in perception and approach to many relationship issues, between males and females.

What this points up to me, is something else that I directly saw destroy some of my most promising pairings. That is, faith, or the lack of it.

When there ARE differences in approach or conception of things like sex and other forms of affection, it is faith in each other which is key to smoothing over the differences. Someone who doesn't have faith, either in that you truly care for them, or in their own care for you, will leave you sooner or later, no matter how many other elements of "chemistry" or compatibility are there.

Based on the wide range of responses here, it might help if a differentiation is made between finding love and keeping it. I personally think the finding of it involves more luck than work, but the keeping of it , requires way more work than luck. It's just my take on it. I know perspectives will differ.

Good point. Though my own experiences with "working to keep love" have all tended to suggest strongly that for me, at least, no amount of work mattered.

But then, I suppose it's also true that if a person isn't "lucky" enough to find a truly compatible mate, no amount of work will help. The old idea that nothing can save a house built on a crooked foundation from falling apart, applies well.

Basically, I have concluded that if I have to work THAT hard to keep someone's interest and faith, it's because she really just doesn't like or want me in her life.