Just for Harley.

Rules of thumb:
Relationships are a two way street. Period.
Relationships are built on trust and communication.
Proximity helps.

Good relationships have many components, we all know that. But the two that I think are the most important are trust and communication. Without trust, there's doubt, which can lead to insecurity, paranoia, and trouble, etc. Trust is the "firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something". In this case the someone being your significant other and the something, the relationship you're sharing and or developing. It's probably a mix of factual and instinctual. Regardless, if you have doubts in the other, I think there's a great possibility that the relationship won't work. Trust also plays in communication.

Part of making a relationship work is the ability for each partner to express their concerns, insecurities, and needs to the other. By doing so, the two can work out the kinks and reaffirm their bond. As a male, you might think it's tedious, but face it...men and women are just that different. Men respond to physical touch, they show their feelings, whereas women tell their feelings; they need to literally hear it from the male. Signs get mixed all the time, it's important that your intent is clear.

When there is doubt or mistrust, communication declines. It may start as lack of interest in talking to the other, to reluctance to tell them what's been happening (important or not), to not talking at all. But the less you talk, the more distance there is between the two partners there is. It makes it easier for the other to wonder, what else is out there? It makes it easier for them to drift and focus solely on their own lives, instead of being part of yours. And this is one possible explanation for why so many long distance relationships fail.

When you're abroad, there can be more than just physical distance. There can be time differences and of course life style differences.

For example, I'm in Hong Kong and Jon's in California. Not only is there thousands of miles between us, but the time difference as well. It's 9 pm here and 6 am over there...yesterday. Lifestyle differences include Hong Kong being a city of the night, whereas everything closes earlier in California.
But all of these things play an impact on any relationship. Being apart from each other, it's hard to be part of someone else's life. They have no idea where places are, who people are, or in general what's happening. Everything has to be imagined. It's hard to be excited or interested in something you have no knowledge of. Common topics can become few and far in between and conversation can become monotonous. Hearing "how's your day? what time is it? what have you been up to?" every time you converse with someone is boring and gets old quick. So what does that leave you with to talk about? In a way, it allows you to explore deeper facets of the personality, but at the same time, it's difficult to get that far when most people are out for instant gratification, something easy, or short term.

When you lose interest in conversing because there's nothing to talk about, you lose interest in talking to the person. This creates a tangible distance between the two. From there, it's easy to start looking, which according to Henning, is when you know that it's over or that the end is coming (I disagree with that, I think it's possible to look and appreciate without straying). So without one partner being there to physically ground your interest, and failing communication, your attention turns to only your life. You focus on what has been happening to you and around you. You begin to see others who you may not have noticed before. And of course, that's trouble.

But before all that happens, let's look at the beginning. How do you meet? Of course on any level, attractiveness plays a part. But it doesn't matter how attractive a person is, when you first enter a room, what do you notice; the attractive person standing next to the wall or the one laughing, smiling, and having a good time? Most people will notice the latter. When a person's confident (but not overly so) in themselves, it shows, and it's sexy. Besides, if you survey a group, most people when asked what they want out from 1 to 10 scale, they don't need a ten and realistically won't say 10 (people do avoid extremes).

So first impressions do matter. But of course, do everything in moderation. You want to catch good attention not be seen as an attention getter. You want to talk enough but not known as the one who won't shut up. Being able to listen and reading in between the lines is more important than talking. Everyone likes to talk about themselves, but everyone likes better the one who can listen to them.

You asked, "how do I get her to notice me?" and while there's no sure answer, I do have this advise for you:

Make her laugh, maker her smile, but most importantly, make her feel good about herself.
People ask me, why do you like Jon, and I always reply, "because he makes me feel good about myself. He makes me feel beautiful inside and out. He doesn't care about my flaws, my imperfections. To him, I'm beautiful and perfect. He gives me confidence and empowers me as I do him." Notice that my answer has nothing to do with how attractive he is or how much money he has, or how skilled he is, but rather, how he makes me more confident and feel like a better person. And that is your goal.

Also note that if there is constant fighting or lots of crying from either partner, something's wrong with your relationship... it's not healthy to be constantly fighting nor constantly upset or crying. Being in a relationship isn't supposed to be a hardship.

Now how do we do that? That's for another time and place. For now, let's look at the impressions. You need to remind her you're a guy and you are available and desirable (not necessarily in the lust filled sense). You need to make her see you in a light of a potential boyfriend rather than just another nice guy. As much as we fight for female independence and rights and what not, we do like it when you buy us dinner, when you open the door, etc. A lot of the times, attraction is in the little things. Remember my example?

When we're walking on the street and he tells me, "walk on the inside, it's safer". It's not that he's saying that I'm weak that he's domineering or whatever you called it, but it's that even though he knows I'm capable of protecting myself, he's caring about my well being. Yes, he's doing the male thing of (providing and ) protecting, but it's sweet.

Earlier, you had also mentioned two things: 1. you wanted to build some muscles and 2. competitiveness is attractive.

1. Muscles are not everything. You see plenty of attractive people with not so attractive people. Muscles are a plus, yes, but personality is more important. For girls, personality can make a guy go from okay, to super damn hot. But it also goes both ways, it can make you really unattractive as well.

I could care less how muscular Jon is, but I find him attractive when he's doing tasks he considers menial such as shoveling snow, or protecting our food from bears when we're camping. He's also adorable when he's slouched on the couch watching TV after a long day. And that definitely does not show off his muscles, and really, I could care less. When I look at him, I see his warm and caring persona, etc.

Although I will admit, girls like a guy who's aggressive to a degree. It's nice to be in charge, but at the same time it gets tiring. It sucks to always have to decide, to motivate, to initiate something. So sometimes, what you call the asshole, the one who just orders his girl to do something, we like it. It takes responsibility from us. It can be thrilling at times, to just go along for the ride, not knowing what's going to come next.

2. Competitiveness is attractive...but it depends on the type of competitiveness. The competitiveness playing sports and the competitiveness in winning arguments is different. Competitiveness in the field shows confidence in skill, aggressiveness, and ambition to succeed, to win. Competitiveness in always winning the argument, per say, is definitely not cool. It's annoying and can be frustrating at times. Don't you just hate the person who always has to be right, who always has to have the last say? In the end, you'd rather not talk to them at all knowing that if you did, you had to deal with that personality, that trait. Besides, you know that saying, "just say yes, the girl's right". Sometimes you just have to do that. Just shut up, even when you know you're right.

You appease the girl. Keep her happy, and she'll keep you happy.
If she's annoyed or angry with you, you can guarantee that your life will probably be frustrating or difficult for as long as she's unhappy with you.

Now here's something I mentioned to you. I have generally observed that the chiller (laid back, easy going, etc.) you are, the more of a high-maintenance girl/guy you can date or end up dating (High-maintenance refers to either time consuming, emotionally consuming, or materialistically consuming). Now why do I say this?

I don't if you've noticed, but high-maintenance people usually end up clashing. Their personalities are so big, drama ensues. Both want to the center of attention, so who's going to step back? Both want to lead, to motivate (initiate). On the other hand, two really chill people, don't get anything done, neither really takes charge. Of course, there are always exceptions to this. So like I said, if you've noticed, the chiller the person is, the more high-maintenance you can handle. The chiller one is happy to listen and follow (provided that they get their opinion in and their share in the relationship) the more opinionated significant other, who is happy to be the center of attention, to lead, to talk, etc. Although, I have noticed also that two similar people can work out too (ex: Sarah and her boyfriend).

So anyways, all of this is just my opinion and not anyone else's. Take it for what it is, an opinion, and make your own decisions.