I find that little by little you build momentum, and then usually, there's more than you can reasonably handle, there are all sorts of variables and exceptions, but that's usually my experience.
I gave a lot of thought recently to the conditional nature of relationships, vs less conditional, and a lot of what I see or hear, is if you can't be _________, you can't be anything, as in, if you don't want to be my boyfriend, I don't even want to talk to you. And I'm always opposite like I just see the person as a good contact.
This is something I didn't realize about people.