What's important in finding someone?

A while back, I discovered that I found the appearance of this young (young being relative, she was about three years younger than me) woman very appealing to me, so I went out of my way to spend time with her and learn more about her. I think it had to do with her mediterranean appearance and her very heavy "Brooklyn" accent.

I spent time sitting next to her, talking about things in her life, listening as she told me more about herself. I learned about her failed relationship with her last boyfriend, how he had cheated on her as well, how she came from a broken family, how she had never spent any time in Brooklyn and so on. Often, this time was outside on a bench as she was a habitual smoker.

Being an ex-smoker (seven years and counting!), it's always tough to resist the desire to ask for a cigarette or want that rush you get after the nicotine gets into your blood. Even after all this time. (There are new studies that may hint at the fact that you make well worn mental pathways in your brain that allow you to fall back into old habits more easily. So much for the devil made me do it excuse.) Anyway, I was willing to put up with this temptation to spend some quality time with her. Finally, I got around to saying that I might be interested in something more and she asked me what my astrological sign was. I told her that I was a leo and her reaciton was, "Oh, you're a hopeless romantic." Then she put out her half smoked cigarette, got up and said goodbye. I haven't seen her since. I think she claimed to be a cancer. (Well, there may be some irony in that factoid.)

At the time, I was taken aback. I'm a hopeless romantic? Where on my face was this information stamped? Ironically, her prediction proved true. It appears that I am indeed a romantic person, considering what I like to do when I am dating. But hopeless? Come on, now. I'm not hopeless, just unmotivated. I say that I just need to find the right woman to unlock the me trapped inside of me.

Then, I recovered (somewhat) from that and then thought: Since when did the sign upon which you were born under determine whether you could date a person? What happened to shared interests or mutual respect? What happened to physical desire, compatible personalities, or intellectual stimulation? How does the vague blurb that you read in the daily newspaper tell you that it's okay to date this person, and the person under some other sign is anathema?

Is there such a thing as a logical romantic? I like to think that I am such a person. Or is there an opposite, an irrational thinker? There must be, since in math, there is such a thing as an irrational number.