Can you date multiple characters at once?

Is there a limit on how many people you can date?

No. Any villager the Social tab marks as single can be romanced, and nothing stops you from building all 12 relationships in parallel.

The wiki's own description of the marriage flow assumes you might: it points out that because the special proposal item appears before the game asks whether you want to propose, you can walk every candidate to that point and only say yes to one.

Marriage is where the exclusivity kicks in, not dating.

How do dates themselves work?

Dates are a separate activity from ordinary conversation, and they have their own conditions.

You need 8 hearts with that character and you need to have completed their Heart Quest. Invitations can only be made on Saturday or Sunday, and each character can be taken on one date per week.

The 1.0 patch notes add that dates now raise friendship levels by more than they used to, and that you can kiss anyone you are dating, engaged to, or married to.

(待确认 — the date scheduling rules above come from wiki pages still labelled v0.15.3, so they have not been re-verified against 1.0.)

What happens at 8 hearts?

This is the point where the romance route can close on you permanently.

The wiki records that heart events at 8 hearts branch: you can take the romantic path, or you can choose to stay platonic and become Best Friends instead. Choosing Best Friends locks that character out of the proposal line.

If you are collecting proposal scenes, take the romantic option every time, even for candidates you have no intention of marrying.

(待确认 — same caveat, this is documented on a wiki page that predates 1.0.)

What happens to everyone else when you propose?

By default, everyone else you were dating is converted to Best Friends, and each of them sends you a break-up letter.

That is the standard outcome and it happens the moment you confirm the engagement, not on the wedding day. So the window for collecting proposal items closes at engagement, not at the ceremony.

Can you stop the break-ups from happening?

Yes, and this is the detail most guides leave out.

The 1.0 patch notes added two separate settings. One hides the break-up letters and the follow-up dialogue, but the break-ups still happen. The other disables the status change entirely, so nobody is dropped at all.

Both appear in the gameplay settings menu, unlocked through the engagement tutorial cutscene. The second one comes with a hard catch: it has to be switched on before you confirm the engagement. Turning it on afterwards does not undo anything.

Why would you date everyone in the first place?

Because of what each candidate hands you during their proposal scene.

Every one of the 12 gives a unique item that the wiki states cannot be obtained any other way. The scene can be retriggered with the Engagement Ring as many times as you like, right up until you formally get engaged.

That is the whole mechanism behind collecting all twelve, and it is confirmed in the official patch notes rather than inferred from player reports.

Where did these facts come from?

The engagement behaviour, the two settings, the kissing change and the retriggerable proposal scenes are all stated in the official 1.0 patch notes. The rule that proposal items are otherwise unobtainable is from the wiki's Marriage page.

The date scheduling and the 8-heart branch come from the wiki's Friendship page, which still carries a v0.15.3 version label. Both are flagged above rather than presented as verified 1.0 behaviour.