Social Attraction

Social attraction is the pull toward spending time with someone and forming a social bond or friendship, separate from romantic, sexual, sensual, or aesthetic attraction. The idea comes from the split attraction model, a framework that treats these forms of attraction as things that can point in different directions rather than always moving together. It is used most often in asexual and aromantic communities, where people describe rich connection and intimacy that does not fit a romantic or sexual mold. Naming social attraction on its own gives people clearer language for how they actually experience closeness, and it helps explain why deep bonds do not have to be romantic to matter.