Previous research finds that individuals tend to form ties with similar others much more often than with dissimilar others. However, we know relatively little about tie loss and to what extent this is driven by (dis)similarity. In this paper, we argue that ties to persons who are dissimilar with regard to gender, age, ethnicity, and education are lost faster than ties to similar persons – and we test three explanations for this faster decay of ties with dissimilar others: lack of meeting opportunities, preferences for similarity, and lower network embeddedness. To test these explanations, we analysed two waves of the Survey on the Social Networks of the Dutch (SSND, 2007, 2014). These SSND-waves contain comprehensive longitudinal panel data on ego networks of 441 respondents, who were interviewed about a wide range of relationships, their alters’ sociodemographic characteristics, where and when they met their alters, as well as how and whether they maintain these relationships. We modelled tie loss by event history analyses. Results show that ties to persons who were dissimilar are more likely to be lost faster, and that tie loss occurs mostly in the early years of a relationship. However, meeting opportunities, preferences for similarity, and network embeddedness are unable to explain why ties to dissimilar others are lost faster. We conclude that dissimilarity is a powerful driver of tie loss, and that more arguments and research are needed to fully understand the underlying mechanisms.

先前的研究发现，个人倾向于与相似的其他人建立联系的频率要比与相似的其他人建立联系的频率高。但是，我们对领带损失及其在多大程度上受（不相似）相似性的影响了解得很少。在本文中，我们认为与性别，年龄，种族和教育不同的人失去联系的速度比与相似的人失去联系的速度快–我们测试了三种与异性关系迅速消亡的解释：满足机会，对相似性的偏好以及较低的网络嵌入度。为了检验这些解释，我们分析了两波《荷兰人社交网络调查》（SSND，2007，2014）。这些SSND波浪包含441位受访者的自我网络上的纵向综合面板数据，这些受访者就广泛的关系，其改变者的社会人口统计学特征，何时何地遇到其改变以及如何以及是否维持这些关系进行了访谈。我们通过事件历史分析对领带损失进行建模。结果表明，与异种人的联系更容易消失，并且这种联系丧失主要发生在关系的早期。但是，遇到机会，对相似性的喜好和网络嵌入性无法解释为什么与异类的联系会更快地丢失。我们得出的结论是，相异性是领带丢失的强大驱动力，并且需要更多的论据和研究来充分理解潜在的机制。