Courtship length and bits of news

Perhaps "courtship" isn't the right word. I'm talking about the period when you haven't yet got together with someone (whether or not the getting together ever happens), when you're flirting, pining, angsting, and/or agonising over exactly what that last text message meant. In your experience, O my readers, does this sort of beginning ever turn into a real relationship? Because most of the time, when I've been mooning after someone for months, either nothing happens or there are a few kisses followed by hasty excuses and backing away. When ghost_of_a_flea and I encountered each other in that bookshop, we clicked so fast that we'd got together four days after we first met. Both of us said a few times over the next few months, "Hang on, is this really the way it's meant to go? What about all the months of not being sure whether the other person Likes me? The careful hours of interpretation of every bit of physical contact and ambiguous comment?" Frankly, it was much easier and happier the way things happened

So what do you think? How often does this sort of start turn into a relationship, and if it does, do they tend to be good relationships (as opposed to, say, months of being stood up)?

( In other news... )