Probability of Recombination Based on Distance.

So I've been trying to figure this out for the past 3 hours. This topic will not be on the midterm i'm taking in 5 days but at this point its a matter of me feeling stupid for not understanding it. I can see how distance between loci can dictate frequency in recombination. What I don't understand is how loci being farther apart results in a higher chance of recombination. Maybe my interpretation of the concept as a whole is warped. The way I see it is that during meiosis I two chromosomes physically pair up with one another. As a result of this pairing the process of crossing-over occurs. Now here's where I think my mistake is. For a long time i have seen crossing over as a process that involves an allele replacing another allele on the same loci (Mendel's law of independent assortment). Now i'm being introduced to the concept that genes at different loci on the same chromosome can recombine and separate by crossing over. Thus, there is a distance between the two loci. Fine, I understand that. But how is it that alleles that are closer together do not have a higher chance of recombination? If i were to draw a picture out of two chromosomes the distance an allele that was closer would have to travel to replace another would be smaller wouldn't it? Clearly this is not the case because science has proven otherwise, but I just cant seem to understand why.