One of the key components of Stardew Valley is the ability to form relationships with the villagers of the game. Some of the villagers are available for dating which opens up further Heart events with them and eventually the marriage option.
Although you can only marry one villager in the game at a time, can you date multiple people in Stardew Valley? Are there any consequences if you do so? How will it affect your game? This article will inform you on the dating mechanics and any of its consequences to the player so you would know what to do in the dating scene of Stardew Valley.
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How Am I Considered To Be Dating A Villager?
Before you learn if you can date multiple people, you have to first know when you will ever be considered dating any of the eligible people in the town. Firstly, not everyone is considered eligible for dating.
The list of the bachelors includes Alex, Elliot, Harvey, Sam, Sebastian, and Shane. On the girls’ side, you have Abigail, Emily, Haley, Leah, Maru, and Penny. They all have a maximum of 8 hearts (unlike eligible candidates with 10 hearts), and once you reach 8 hearts with any villager, Pierre will inform you via mail about the availability of the bouquet at his shop.
You can buy the bouquet for 200 gold from Pierre’s General Store and it will be in your inventory. You then can gift the bouquet to any of the mentioned eligible candidates regardless of your current standing with them which will raise the cap of 8 hearts to 10 hearts.
Once you did all that, you will be considered to date those villagers. If you click on your social tab in the pause menu, your status will then change to that of either “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” depending on the gender of the recipient. Congratulations, now you need to know the potential consequences if you decide to go out with multiple villagers at once.
Can I Date Multiple People, And What Are The Consequences If Any?
Now you know how the dating mechanics work, now you want to know about the answer you have been waiting for. Can you date multiple people? Well, the answer is mostly yes, as you can hand out bouquets to all the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes. However, there ARE going to be consequences for doing this.
Firstly, if you are not married and have raised your hearts to 10 with all available bachelors as well as see all of each bachelor 10 heart event then you will trigger a cutscene the next time you enter The Stardrop Saloon.
You will be confronted by all the men you were dating, and no matter what you say, you will be given the cold shoulder by all of them.
The cold shoulder is an ongoing event that lasts for about a week where attempting to interact with any of the bachelors will cause all of them to ignore you in dialogue or tell you to go away. They won’t accept any gifts from you whatsoever during this time.
However, once a week has passed since the cold shoulder event happened, everything will go back to normal as they will forgive you. Your relationship points will not be affected (aside from the timely decay of the relationship over time) by the event.
The same thing happens to the bachelorettes, where if all of the girls are raised to 10 hearts with their 10-heart event then the next time the player enters Haley’s and Emily’s house they will be greeted with a similar confrontation event. The cold shoulder event will then apply similarly to the bachelors mentioned above, this time to the girls.
Aside from the confrontation event, if you’re married then you also have to deal with jealousy from your spouse. Jealousy occurs whenever a villager you have given a bouquet to has the same gender as your spouse (so for example, if your spouse is Sam, he can be jealous of Alex but not Abigail.) and you have given them a gift of just about anything.
There’s a chance for your spouse to be jealous depending on your luck factors, if it succeeds then you take a relationship penalty with your spouse, and the next time you speak to them they’ll certainly remind you of their faith in you.
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How Do I Avoid These Consequences?
Now that you know the consequences of dating multiple people, you may ask if it’s possible to avoid going through any of the penalties mentioned above. Of course, you can, and it’s very easy to do so.
Firstly, the confrontation event is separated by gender as mentioned before. So long as all of the male candidates have had their 10-heart star event then the confrontation will repeat, the same goes for the girl candidates. Therefore, if you want to avoid the confrontation event, simply do not date every single villager of one gender and raise them to 10 hearts.
You can also avoid the confrontation places where they would occur if all other requirements had been met. Just be sure to remember that both Alex and Hailey’s 10 heart event occurs in The Stardrop Saloon and Hailey’s/Emily’s house respectively. So, if you did their events last to the other bachelor/bachelorettes then the confrontation is unavoidable.
If you have the rabbit’s foot, the confrontation event is instead replaced by an entirely different cutscene. Instead of being confronted by the bachelors/bachelorettes, nothing noteworthy happens and the cold shoulder state on any of the candidates won’t occur.
It’s also important to note that the confrontation event once, so if you triggered it normally or with the rabbit’s foot then you will never have to worry about it again for the current run of your game.
But what about in the case of jealousy? Opposite gender candidates of your spouse do not incur jealousy whatsoever so you’re completely free to date them and raise them to 10 hearts even. (although you cannot marry more than one person as mentioned before).
What’s even better is that by being married, you actually avoid confrontation altogether as you need to be unmarried for you to be eligible to receive the event.
Other than that, you can also avoid jealousy by sending gifts during the birthday of the bachelor/bachelorettes you’re sending to. So, make sure to check the calendar to ensure you don’t miss out on any guilt-free gifting opportunities.
Conclusion
Those are pretty much all there is to dating multiple people at a time in a nutshell. So, the question of if you can date multiple people at Stardew Valley is pretty much a big yes. However, there are consequences that you can get yourself into if you aren’t careful.
Thankfully, those are all easily manageable and avoidable and this guide would surely help you to plan your dating life in Stardew Valley! (Just make sure not to do this in real life.)
