one of my exes got me a pair of sneakers like, very shortly before we broke up so i kept them in their original box in the closet before i ever got to wear them for like, a whole year before i started dating my current partner and she said she liked them a lot and that i should absolutely wear them - now they’re not “my exe’s shoes”, they’re “the shoes my partner likes”
i think it’s really nice when that happens organically, but you can definitely push the needle forward yourself if need be; do a listening party for that album with your friends, watch that show or movie with your siblings, expand the circle of trust around <thing> so it belongs to more people, and in turn it’ll belong to you more than it did when it was just you and the person who introduced you to it