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Description: Shared preferences---liking the same things---form bonds between individuals. However, not all shared preferences are equally meaningful. Here we find that people's judgments about social affiliation are systematically influenced by statistical information about the prevalence of a preference. In particular, we present evidence for a rare preference effect: participants chose to affiliate with (Exp.1), and endorsed affiliation between (Exp.2), individuals who share a rare preference, rather than those who share a common preference. Our results suggest that the rare preference effect is rooted in the presence of shared knowledge. While a preference can be decomposed into knowledge (i.e., knowing about something) as well as taste (i.e., enjoying it or finding it appealing), the effect of rarity was found only in the context of shared knowledge but not shared taste (Exp.3 & 4). Finally, people chose to affiliate with someone who arrived at a preference deliberately rather than accidentally (Exp.5). In addition to the many cultural and emotional factors that drive social relationships, our results suggest that the ability to reason about the statistics of the social environment can also give rise to mutual attraction.