Love is made, not found. You don’t have to settle unless you want to see yourself as a settler (which doesn’t quite sound right). Settling sounds very passive, as if you have nothing to do with love. Love is some entity that either graces you, or it doesn’t.
When you’re in a relationship, even one where you don’t feel that infatuation phase (which, as we all know, usually doesn’t last forever), you have to grow love, as if it were a flower in a garden. Yes, that infatuation can provide fertile soil, but it might not, also. It might have just a little bit of good earth on top of depths of clay.
Making love in a relationship means tending to the soil, building it up with compost, making it go deep, and attending to it’s fertility. There are many techniques to grow love. You can grow it from the most inhospitable of soils if you are committed to making that happen. However, if you expect it to grow itself, it’ll die.
You don’t need infatuation (in loveness) to start, but it is nice. Having an abiding belief that you are meant to be together is a great way to lay the groundwork for a loving relationship. It doesn’t guarantee anything, though. You need to attend to the relationship in order to make it grow and flower. You can do that with anyone you want, so long as you both decide to do that. It doesn’t require being “in love.”
So, it kind of depends on your goal. If you want the high of “falling” in love, then you can run around falling in love with many people. If you want a real relationship, you have to work hard, and have a partner who is willing to work just as hard.