If your sim has made some of the charisma skill challenges, they can become instant friends with sims they have any kind of contact with at all. Usually when my sim gets that kind of instant acquaintance or friendship with someone without meeting them, it turns out they are a new coworker. With NRaas Story Progression, "meet all coworkers" is on by default, which is what causes these remote meetings. If you don't want it to happen, you need to set that one on false. Story Progression > General > Career Options > Meet all coworkers. I'm not sure of the exact wording of those steps, because I'm not in my game right now, but that should give you enough of an idea of what you're looking for.
