propinquity and distance can facilitate attraction. Accordingly, in the tradition of medieval romance, the love object was always inaccessible, and modern Romance and romantic love encompass a number of ideas about love, which are interrelated for historical and cultural reasons: passionate feelings of attraction—a mental state of "being in love", with focused attention (salience) towards a specific individual for courtship or pair bonding; the cultural practice or idealization of initiating intimate relationships for feelings like these, over more Similarity, also known as "birds of a feather flock together". Propinquity, in other words similarity of location, and the mere exposure effect, for example. Being liked, which tends to also cause liking in return, called reciprocal liking. Matching of admirable characteristics, so people tend to pair with those who have similar attractiveness, called the matching hypothesis. Social and cultural influences, which constrain who people are likely to meet, and what is considered attractive or important. According to self-expansion, attraction should result from the opposite of these five predictors (because, for example, similarity would seem to minimize self-expansion—resulting in less attraction). Therefore, the Arons propose that these are five preconditions which make a relationship possible, whereas attraction according to self-expansion increases when an opposite condition is present. For example, a person may be attracted to similarity when it provides the basis for effective communication or predictability, whereas differences provide the basis for self-expansion: new challenges, new experiences, new resources, etc. Self-expansion also suggests…

this tendency influences judgements, decisions, and interpersonal relationships, leading individuals to favour people, objects, and outcomes that are Proximity bias refers to the cognitive bias that people have a preference for things that are close in time and space. The common proverb, out of sight, out of mind, is a reflection of proximity bias. More broadly, this tendency influences judgements, decisions, and interpersonal relationships, leading individuals to favour people, objects, and outcomes that are physically near to them. The bias i Proximity bias refers to the cognitive bias that people have a preference for things that are close in time and space. The common proverb, out of sight, out of mind, is a reflection of proximity bias. More broadly, this tendency influences judgements, decisions, and interpersonal relationships, leading individuals to favour people, objects, and outcomes that are physically near to them. The bias intersects with other cognitive biases rooted in a preference for the familiar. Related phenomena include the mere exposure effect, in which repeated exposure increases liking, and in-group favouritism, the tendency to favour one's own social group over others. The bias is also closely related to the proximity principle, a phenomenon in social psychology whereby individuals are more likely to form interpersonal relationships with those who are physically nearby. While the proximity principle concerns relationship formation, proximity bias extends this tendency to judgements of probability and decision-making more broadly.

Romantic partnerships are highly influential for adolescent development, but many questions remain as to how and with whom such relationships emerge. By adopting a dynamic social network perspective, this study furthers our understanding of the peer-related precursors to heterosexual adolescent romance. Multivariate statistical network models are applied to unique longitudinal data on 1919 Dutch adolescents' (M_age = 14.9, SD_age = 1.6; 52% girls, 12% non-Western migration background) romantic relationships and other social ties (e.g., friendships, popularity nominations, "crushes"). Results indicate that peer-related processes at the individual-, couple-, and network-level increase the probability that a different-gender pair will form a romantic partnership. Adolescent pairs are more likely to begin heterosexual romantic partnerships if they were previously friends, shared the same school or classroom context, had mutual friends, or were friends with the respective members of another couple. These findings emphasize the value of recognizing how adolescents' intimate romantic relationships are embedded in broader peer contexts.