The Sims 2/Social Interactions

The social need has so many ways to fill it and their all rewarding in their own right. In fact, one page alone can't describe all the social interactions. That's why they've been split up into three pages.

• Romantic
• Family
• Normal

Normal interactions can be performed to any sim. Romantic interactions can't be performed to family members and family interactions can only be performed to family members. Now for some basic information on the relationship score.

Relationship Scores

Relationships are split up into two scores: Daily and Lifetime. Daily represents short-term relationships and is volatile. Lifetime represents long-term relationships and is not as volatile as daily. This is because only a few interactions can increase or decrease it. Both relationship types can change numbers without any influence, however the way they do so is different.

Daily Relationship

Daily relationship is an extremely volatile score. It's easy to build up but is just as easy to decrease. It can also decay over time. Every day at 4pm, each sims daily will drop by two points. This can also break friendships as they must be mutual. At that time, you may be pestered with phone calls from other sims your sim knows asking to be socialized with. If you want to keep relationship high, this should be taken as a wake-up call

Lifetime Relationship

Lifetime relationship is more stable than daily. Instead of decaying, it normalizes. Three times a day, the lifetime will shift towards daily score by three. There are few interactions that raise lifetime and most of them are romantic.

Availability and Acceptance

On the other pages you may see the terms availability and acceptance. For clarity these terms are defined here. Availability refers to whether a social interaction can be initiated on a sim. Think of it as an unlockable system of sorts where increasing score gives you more interactions.

Acceptance is whether a social interaction goes right. When you initiate an interaction, certain criteria must be met for it to be accepted. This is why newly unlocked interactions may go wrong when initiated.

Exceptions

There are plenty of exceptions to these rules for social interactions. The list is as follows.

Aspiration Rewards

The following aspiration rewards make it easier to perform social interactions.

• Cool Shades. The shades amplify the outcome of the first social interaction performed after the shades are worn
• Love Tub. The Love Tub seems like a normal hot tub but lowers requirements for all social interactions performed within it. This only applies until the candles included with it burn out.

Chemistry (Nightlife)

Chemistry, like the Love Tub, reduces requirements for various socials. For more information see Attraction and Chemistry

Seasons (Seasons)

Various seasons amplify types of social interactions.

• Summer. Summer amplifies normal interactions.
• Spring. Spring amplifies romantic interactions.
• Winter. Winter amplifies normal interactions between household and family members.

Vacation Destinations (Bon Voyage)

Some vacation destination types amplify social interactions.

• Island. Island destinations amplify romantic socials.
• Mountains. Mountains amplify normal interactions. This is why, if you have Seasons installed, the relationship boost sign shows the summer boost icon, even though the preset seasons are Autumn and Winter.

Social Bunny

The Social Bunny appears when your Sim's social need is too low, and is only visible to that Sim. The lonely Sim can interact with the Social Bunny to raise the social need and at 50% the bunny will disappear. If multiple Sims have low social need, multiple bunnies may appear, but are invisible to other Sims, although they can interact with each other.