There is a counting of the Cost, when it comes to relationships.
A man would be a fool if he set out to build a relationship but neither had the means, Honor, nor the blueprints to complete it. If I am really interested in a woman, I have to believe that I have some shot at showing her what that means to me.
If I pledged my loyalty to one woman and sought after her with all my heart, yet I owed a great debt or if whom she trusts doesn't like us together, she would find me weighed and measured and found wanting. There are things that muddy the waters for a man with even the best of chances.
Real life isn't Aladdin, and no amount of spectacle or Volume of Love can bridge the gap between the one who is worthy of love, and the one who would cross oceans to find it. Love is not a vacancy to be filled, it is the overflow of what already lies within us, to share with someone who will cherish it as we do. It is not to be summoned upon command but, inspired and drawn from within us.
So, sometimes, to chase after a woman who would captivate us, heart mind and body, is to willingly admit that we see the possibility of both ends, not only if we should succeed but if we should fail. Sometimes it is better, in spite of all that is at stake and how dear it is, to bow out, rather than find ourselves wishing that we had saved ourselves the trouble and simply fallen on our sword in the first place. Because in the end the effect is the same inside.