Gaining relationship without actual social interaction -- possible to disable?

In the Sims 3, it seems that with one of the expansions or patches, they added a feature whereby your sims can gain relationship levels with other sims without even interacting with them. If I a simply click another sim, it counts as my sim having met that sim. I'm not sure exactly what the feature is called though.

Is there any way to disable this feature, through mods or other means?

Thanks.