The intial attraction: how GREAT he looks in a suit (he really has the perfect body for suits: tall, lean, broad shoulders, narrow hips), his friendly confidence (meaning he carries himself well, he was totally confident, but not a jerk or conceited), and his awesome English / South African / Texan accent. (what a combination!)
My roommate and I were begging a doorman to let us have just a quick peek inside and we'd come right back, we swear. He was not having it. Jer was inside and saw us begging all pathetically, and smiled, strode over, opened the door (elbow in the doorman's belly), looked him in the eye and said "Aww, let the ladies have a look" and winked. We ran in, thought it was awesome, ran right back out. But he made an impression on me! We bumped into him a few hours later at a coffee house, I gave him my email address because I didn't know him well enough to just give him my number, and that's where it began. :) I picked the best one possible for ME.
(My "issue" with giving out my number was the month before, I'd phoned an exbf in CA and we had a nice talk. Then one day a couple weeks later, he unexpectedly knocked on my door, in TX! That really freaked me out. I didn't have a computer (nor did my friends back then), so the idea of taking a number off caller id, getting on this new thing called internet, and doing a reverse lookup for an address, and then getting directions??? Freaky! I wouldn't give anyone my number until 6 months later when I got my first cell phone. Dang, I'm old! )