"become romantic partners" option unavailable

i have 2 teenage sims who im trying to get into a relationship. neither of them have been in prior relationships, their personalities are compatible, romance is above 50%. whenever i open the "change relationship" tab, i only get "ask to be bffs" and "ask to just be friends"

ive tried troubleshooting by asking if hes single, learning romance preferences and orientation and even repairing the game and deleting cache files. is this a known bug? i play with mods but to my knowledge they're all up to date (built this pc like a week ago and redownloaded all mods). ive never seen this before when all the romance requirements are met and im very confused