I think a good case can be made for the existence of certain rules that govern sexual attraction in humans (and perhaps even animals and plants).

One of the most well-known rules about dating is "opposites attract." This means that masculine people will tend to match up with feminine persons. And this applies even to homosexual couples.

I believe the "opposites attract" principle can explain why height is such an important factor in dating for men. We know that males, on average, are larger than females. So, in a way, a tall stature is a masculine secondary sexual characteristic and, therefore, it is considered attractive to females. Likewise, other qualities such as a deep voice and muscles are masculine secondary sexual characteristics and men with those qualities are considered more attractive to feminine persons because of them.

But I think there might be additional sexual characteristics besides the ones I've mentioned. There are probably tertiary and quaternary sexual characteristics. Muscular strength is a good example of a tertiary characteristic while the various social stuff you do (e.g. your job) is best interpreted as a quaternary characteristic.

Another good rule I often see implicitly accepted is "men are active, women are passive." This is frankly quite a popular opinion to have, but it seems many people seem to have a problem with it. I'm talking about the men who complain why women absolutely refuse to approach men even if they like a guy. It turns out, it's simply not in their nature. A good, albeit weird analogy, I like to draw upon is the example of the sperm and the egg. The egg may help the sperm travel towards it but it will never come of its own towards the sperm, it just doesn't function that way.