@Backstabbath88i think it's more about the implications of the actions rather than the actions in and of themselves. when you flirt, kiss, embrace, make out, etc, the romance bar goes up. if you're doing fwb i assume you wouldn't want that (unless you're playing out a storyline where someone catches feelings cause...it's been known to happen lol). i'm not sure what the solution would be to keep the fwb option out of the friendly category AND out of the romance category...it's tough to do "no strings attatched" when you're acting with the intention of being romantic (why having it under romance would be problematic) but also if your sim is woohooing someone then it's not necessarily ~friendly~ (like you said, you probably aren't going straight from talking about local fishing spots to getting into bed). the problem kind of seems to stem from the romance bar going up when romantic interactions are done; the game doesn't recognize the difference between wanting to be partners and wanting to be fwb without them being in separate categories. i'd be curious to see what the sims team had in mind while making this! i couldn't find anything official out there. the best i could find was this interpretation https://bestgamingtips.com/sims-4-woohoo-partners/#:~:text=WooHoo%20Partners%20is%20a%20new,without%20having%20any%20romantic%20attachments.
Edit: the game doesn't recognize the difference between *romantic* partners and fwb
Edit 2 (because i keep thinking of more things lmao): my opinion is definitely warped because i went to a college where fwb situations were incredibly common. it was practically what we were known for by the other colleges in the area and they would all joke about it to tease us. it's not unheard of to me for someone to say they were dtf to someone they weren't romantically interested in.