Romantic interest in TS4

I did not read the entire thread. My impression is that the pink ts4 bar indicates a romantic interest but it needs to be worked on before your sim can access all romantic interactions. I'm not sure how it's calculated, but I guess the pink bar should be at least 25% full before you can get into serious business. Also a sim's traits might come into play, meaning not all sims will get the same romance pie menue at the same level of the pink bar.

Most of my sims will need to go steady to unlock options like "try for baby", but occasionally there will be one sim who will woohoo on the first date. Also, it's often not possible to rush go steady>engagement>marriage. Some sims will respond that "hey, we just had our first kiss, it's a bit early to tie the knot". Then you must wait a day or so.

The relation system is more advanced than it might look like at first. I also think some sims do develop their pink bar quicker than others, giving a feeling there exists some hidden attraction system (possibly based on traits/skills/career?).

"GirafHuntr;c-17913257" wrote:
I agree with what a few others said, that the "Ask to Just Be Friends" thing does reset the bar but doesn't stop flirting going forward. In fact, very often they immediately flirt again the second after agreeing to be friends, which kind of annoys me. It took me a long time to realize that this same interaction can actually be used at any point in a relationship. It's an "amicable" break-up option rather than the "mean" "break-up" option. Makes sense because sometimes relationships end in a friendly manner when people realize they just aren't right for each other.

I was using it for an amicable break-up, but it didn’t seem to work fully. Let me give an example.

Anthony dated Betsy and Julia over the years. He and Betsy decide to get married. Anthony asks Julia to “just be friends”. At the wedding, Julia gets angry that Anthony cheated on her when he marries Betsy.

"babajayne;c-17915414" wrote:

"GirafHuntr;c-17913257" wrote:
I agree with what a few others said, that the "Ask to Just Be Friends" thing does reset the bar but doesn't stop flirting going forward. In fact, very often they immediately flirt again the second after agreeing to be friends, which kind of annoys me. It took me a long time to realize that this same interaction can actually be used at any point in a relationship. It's an "amicable" break-up option rather than the "mean" "break-up" option. Makes sense because sometimes relationships end in a friendly manner when people realize they just aren't right for each other.

I was using it for an amicable break-up, but it didn’t seem to work fully. Let me give an example.

Anthony dated Betsy and Julia over the years. He and Betsy decide to get married. Anthony asks Julia to “just be friends”. At the wedding, Julia gets angry that Anthony cheated on her when he marries Betsy.

That's interesting! Sounds like the game still recognized them as being in a romantic relationship even though it was set to zero. I wonder if the same thing would happen if they'd had a nasty breakup? I have never had former partners attend each other's weddings, should do that some time for the drama.