The process of courtship also contributed to Arthur Schopenhauer's pessimism, despite his own romantic success, and (he argued that to be rid of the challenge of courtship would drive people to suicide with boredom. )Schopenhauer theorized that individuals seek partners who share certain interests and tastes, while at the same time looking for a "complement" or completing of themselves in a partner, (as in the cliché that "opposites attract"), but with the added consideration that both partners manifest this attraction for the sake of the species:
"But what ultimately draws two individuals of different sex exclusively to each other with such power is the will-to-live which manifests itself in the whole species, (and here anticipates), in the individual that these two can produce, (an objectification of its true nature corresponding to its aims.)" --World as Will and Representation, Volume 2, Chapter XLIV