The Introvert's Guide to Friendship and Love

Do you have trouble interjecting yourself into the pixellated lives of your neighbors? Do you often wonder why you don't have more hearts with any given character? Have you wasted hours trying to find someone on their birthday, only wind up giving them an expensive gift that they hate, right as they're about to step into their house to spend the evening with their family, thereby losing all progress you've made with them in the past six months, and dejectedly slink back to your farm with the sinking suspicion that they are talking smack about you to their spouse and/or children offscreen?

If you answered YES to any of these questions, then THIS GUIDE IS FOR YOU! <3

Hello, and Welcome!

Thank you for taking the time to read this guide!

Firstly, you should know that this is hardly a comprehensive guide on how to be friends with the fair people of Stardew Valley. The intent of this guide is just to give those people who are troubled by the seemingly capricious and arbitrary whims of their neighbors, some sense of direction in this little tiny community that is most certainly not, by any means, a cult.

Flowers!

Everyone likes flowers, right? No. They don't. A lot of the people in Stardew Valley appreciate a pretty flower here and there, however. The great thing about starting the game is that it begins in Spring, when not one, but two different kinds of flowers can be found cheerily growing in the wild.

The first, and possibly best at this point in the game, is the Daffodil.

Most of the ladies and older gentlemen will appreciate this as a gift, to varying degrees. Most of the younger men will not. Surprisingly, Jodi absolutely detests daffodils. She also shops at Jojamart, so make of it what you will.

The next flower we will examine in fragrant detail is the Dandelion.

Let us pause for a moment to reflect. Look closely at the Dandelion, and then at the Daffodil. You may note that the game tags them as a "Forage" item, rather than a "Flower" item. Do not let the game insinuate that you're merely some parentless, grubby child, plucking lovely, innocent plant life up by the roots and thrusting it aplomb into the trembling hands of gawking passers-by. These flowers, even the Dandelion, make for perfectly acceptable gifts, even if you technically foraged them like a desperate pauper respectable hermit farmer. You may wish to be a little more nearly judicious with the usage of the Dandelion, however, as fewer people appreciate it than do the Daffodil. To play it safe, Leah and Penny like them.

Now let us look at the staple flower of the Summer, the Sweet Pea.

This is the darling of the meadow. The poppet of the hedgerows. The gem in the salt of the earth. Even the game recognizes its humble, purple splendor by gracing it with the designation of "Flower." You will find almost everyone in the Valley appreciates the Sweet Pea. Only the most dour of men would frown at its passing. If you're going for brownie points with your neighbors, as a rule of thumb, you should make every effort to pick every Sweet Pea you find and give it to someone.

Onions and Berries

Springtime has some special treats with which to surprise you. While they become a little more abundant towards mid spring, they're bound to be super helpful in your early game at any rate.

Without further ado, the furtive Spring Onion!

You can find these south of Leah's cottage, across the river. They grow wild in the bare patches not far from the sewer exit pipe. By themselves, they aren't worth very much at all, and there aren't many people who like them. However, if you speak with Leah long enough, you'll discover that she's a fan of foraged things, and will appreciate these as a gift. Linus, also, obviously, does a lot of living off the land, and likes him a good spring onion as well. Finally, it is a little-known secret that Dr. Harvey also likes spring onions. If you are interested in making friends with these three people, you would do well to spend your onions on them. No matter how funny that sounds, they'll take it seriously.

The ubiquitous Salmonberry!

Appearing on most bushes during the middle and latter parts of Spring, you can sometimes shake two or three berries from the same bush. If you dedicate a little time to it, you'll easily wind up with over 100 berries by the end of Spring. They sell for even less than Spring Onions, but Shane, Leah and a few others like them and it doesnt take any energy to collect them. It's a very economical gift if you decide you're going to be their friend.

The decadent Blackberry!

These appear in the fall, both on the ground, and in bushes much the way the Salmonberries appeared in Spring. They're worth quite a bit more, however, and you'll find more people like them. Demetrius and Elliot in particular have an inclination towards blackberries.

Clutter, and How to Address Your Mess

Are your pockets stuffed full of flowers yet? It's okay if you sell some of them off. You'll need the money! Try to make a point of selling the flowers that have little stars next to them, as they will bring you a little more money than those that do not. In terms of raising your relationship standings with your neighbors, you do slightly benefit from giving them gold or silver star quality items, but as a general rule I would suggest you save those for birthdays. We'll talk about this later, too!

Let's build a chest!

I would recommend you place this inside of your house. I have heard that you can place chests in other areas, but that just sounds rude. Let's be a good neighbor to our friends.

At the early stage of the game, you should probably consider selling things more than hoarding them, if you're a hoarding kind of player. Buying the backpack upgrade from Pierre's is a godsend, and the sooner you can get it, the better. As the seasons progress and you make more use of your farmland, you will doubtless need more and more chests.

That said, I would recommend you keep at least one of each item you come across (including crops you have grown) in your chest, in the event you come across something on the Help Wanted board outside of Pierre's.

Occasionally the quest is for an item so trivial you have to wonder why they just didn't walk ten or twenty feet out of the front door and get the item themselves. Regardless, you'll find your neighbor will appreciate your help, and like you just a little more with each time you help them. The reward money is generally substantially more than what the going rate for the item in question, too.

Finally, don't be afriad to rummage through the rubbish bins.

The trash cans outside your neighbors houses sometimes contain pretty good things, like freshly baked fish, acorns, field snacks, and even the occasional diamond. Seriously. Clint throws diamonds in his trash can from time to time. Don't expect to find literal treasures in the trash with any real frequency, but it happens often enough that I strongly encourage you to get your hands dirty. The food items found in the garbage can outside the saloon can make great gifts ("Here, my friend, have this delicious, still-warm bowl of stuffing that I totally didn't just pull out of the garbage an hour ago!") and can literally be a life saver before you have a means of making food of your own.

Be discerning, however. If people catch you rummaging around the in the trash, they will begin to dislike you a little. Don't do it while someone is nearby... unless that someone is Linus, in which case he really won't mind.

Don't Eat Your Vegetables!

You can also give produce as gifts. Generally, produce with a lower price makes a better gift, because there doesn't seem to be any difference based off of the costliness of the crop in question. Most of your neighbors like vegetables, but as with almost everything, there are a few exceptions. As a rule of thumb, if someone doesn't like one vegetable, there's a very high chance that they will not like any vegetable.

The humble Parsnip!

Likely the first crop you'll ever grow on your farm, most of your friends-to-be will like this. Pam absolutely loves Parsnips, if you're intersted in getting on her good side. Cheap, quick growing veggies like this are hard to beat. Since you can only grow these in the Spring, it's a good way to get started if your friend doesn't like flowers.

The longstanding Corn!

This is an excellent investment for more reasons than just friendship. They grow in both Summer and Fall, and the stalk continues to produce after its first harvest! If you plant some stalks of corn on the first day of Summer, you'll wind up with maximum bang for your buck all the way until Winter comes, and you'll be able to not only profit financially, but also by giving your neighbors something tasty to have with their dinner.

The hearty Bok Choy!

You might think of this as an autumnal Parsnip. It grows just as fast, but is worth a little more, and is just a lot of fun to say out loud. Bok. Choy.

As an honorable mention, we should also talk about Wheat.

What's so great about wheat? Other than its four day growth time, the fact that no one has any strong feelings about it at all. As far as I can tell, every single one of your friends and neighbors has neutral feelings about Wheat. Literally the safest thing you can ever do, is to walk right up to someone at their dinner table, and plop down a carefully wrapped bundle of grains attached to what could probably be used for hay if we were being serious here, and flash them your winningest smile. While this is not the fastest way to win friends and influence enemies, it's pretty consistent across the board.

Happy Birthday!

Whether they're the grumpiest old man who ever grumped, or the sprightliest young imp who ever giggled, everyone in Stardew Valley deeply appreciates you observing their birthday with a gift. In fact, they appreciate it exactly eight times as much as getting a gift on an unbirthday.

When you go into town, you should make a point of doing two things early and often. First, check the help wanted board at Pierre's if there is a little exclamation point over it. Second, check the calendar for birthdays and events.

You can also buy a Calendar at Robin's carpentry shop, but it's a pretty expensive purchase early on. You might want to wait a little while before doing that. If and when you do procure your very own calendar, however, I would recommend you put it right by your bed so that you can check it first thing.

It's important to keep track of how many gifts you've given someone in a week.

You can give someone up to two gifts in a week, and only one gift per day. Any more than that, and things will get so awkward and weird that even the game designer forbids it! Each time you give a gift, a little green X appears in one of the boxes next to the gift icon in your Social tab by the person in question. Gift givin's reset on Sundays, so bear that in mind when you're counting down to your soon-to-be friend's birthday!

Earlier it was mentioned that you benefit slightly from giving someone a silver or gold star quality item. This bonus, at least according to the wiki, is 10% for silver star quality, and 25% for gold star quality. Normally this is pretty insignificant... unless you are giving someone a birthday gift! So make sure that you save those gold star Daffodils for your sweetheart. Unless they hate flowers, of course.

The Flower Dance

While the Egg Festival comes first, I think of the Flower Dance as the first "big" event in terms of getting to know a special someone. It's going to be a tough one to convince someone to dance with you your first year in, however.

Are you excited? Nervous? Afraid literally no one will want to dance with you this year? (or ever in your life?) It's okay. My first year no one danced with me. I still got married, though, and now I have a reserved dance partner every year, regardless of how silly the dance itself looks.

In order to get someone to dance with you, you'll need a four heart relationship with them! Yikes! So if you want that to happen on your first year, you'll need to be pretty busy chasing someone with gifts. If they accept your invitation to dance with them, however, your relationship with them will increase by one heart.

If you're feeling particularly ambitious, let's work on getting you a date!

Don't be too picky, however. It is my opinion that you'll only be able to ask either Haley or Shane to dance with you on your first year. They both have birthdays before the Flower Dance, and they're the only eligible singles who can participate.

I think probably the easier of the two would be Haley, since she likes Daffodils. Your first week in, it won't be very hard to find two Daffodils to give her, and her schedule usually revolves around hanging out of the fountain by the Community Center, or lounging around at her house. Make sure you give her a birthday Gold Star Daffodil, and you should realistically be able to get where you want to be with her.

Shane is probably a little trickier in that he dislikes everything you can forage in the spring. He does, however, like Parsnips, so you may want to plant a heap of them on day one, and save a couple for him every week. The good thing about Shane is that he LOVES Pizza and Beer, both of which you can buy from Gus at the Stardrop Saloon. If you manage to get enough money (600g for Pizza, 400g for Beer) to buy one, and save it for his birthday, you might be able to make more progress than Daffodilling your way to the dance with Haley. Shane works at Jojamart most days, and can be found probably every night at the Saloon.

Jelly, Pickles, Beer, and Wine

Once you unlock the Preserves Jar (Farming Level 4) you can start making jellies out of fruits, and pickles out of vegetables. For those of you with the existential quandary arising from Pickled Tomatoes, I share your agony.
+ = ??

One thing I like to do is create a dozen or more Preserves Jars, and load them up with Salmonberries. While it's not a terrible way to make use of your Salmonberries, and the resulting jelly is not particularly valuable, it changes the Salmonberries into an entirely different category of item. You can give the jelly as gifts to your neighbors, and even if they hate Salmonberries (as is the case with Caroline) they will like Salmonberry Jelly. Bear in mind that not every single person likes jelly or pickles, such as Sebastian.

When you unlock the Keg (Farming Level 8) you can make various alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.

While it's probably a fiscally terrible idea, I also mass-produce Salmonberry Wine, for the same reasons I make Salmonberry Jelly. My cows don't seem to mind having an unnecessarily large number of kegs wiggling around in their sleeping space, making ominous but adorable bubbling noises as they labor hard and long to create something that is essentially drinkable garbage. Salmonberry Wine only sells for about 15g and takes about one week to produce, but it's Wine that I don't feel like I'm losing much money on by giving it to my neighbors. Seriously, this is such a low-quality alcoholic beverage that probably the only thing worth money about it is the bottle it's inside of, and actually that bottle is worth even less than a clean one because now it smells like fermented Salmonberries. This stuff is the boxed wine of Stardew Valley, and it's something that I carry around with me all the time, just in case I should come across someone I think needs a drink.

Not everyone likes wine, of course. Take Penny, for example. Her mother, Pam, is - let's face it - a barely functioning alcoholic, who has a job as a bus driver. I'm not sure who thought it would be a good idea to give the drunken woman a job driving what is essentially a highway-legal torpedo loaded up with human beings, but at least the woman has a job - even if it involves regularly endangering the lives of other people. Pam's a pretty great friend, however, because she mails you Beer. Think about that for a second.

As of the writing of this guide, I have not yet attempted to give Beer or any alcoholic beverage to the children in this game, Jas and Vincent. The idea hadn't occurred to me that such a thing was possible, really, until I was having a conversation with a dear, sweet, extremely virtuous friend of mine. Now, however, I must confess I am dreadfully curious about the repercussions of doing such a thing. If Stardew Valley has a jail, I will let you know.

Where Is My Friend Hiding?

Now that we've covered some of the things that I think make pretty great gifts, we just have to find our neighbors and give it to them! But if you're anything like me, you've searched in vain on more than one occasion to find that special someone and give them something you worked very hard on to pull out of the trash can Preserves Jar.


If you're looking for a detailed schedule of who goes where, when, you're certainly best served looking at the wiki. To cover the broader strokes of things, however, you're likely to find some of your neighbors by the fountain outside of the Community Center in the mornings, especially in Spring. A lot of people also go to Pierre's to do their morning grocery shopping. Artsy types like to go for meandering walks in Cindersap Forest (that's the region of the map that has Marnie's Farm and Leah's Cottage on it) which tend to terminate by the riverbank there. Most people head to the Stardrop Saloon in the evening, especially on Fridays when there is a small weekly get-together in the game room of the Saloon. Sam, Shane, and Maru have part time jobs, during which time they will change clothes into their work uniforms - you can tell if they're on duty or not by looking for their picture in your Social menu. Those who run shops can reliably be found at their places of business during business hours, and there is a women's workout meeting Tuesday early afternoons in Pierre's living room, at least in Spring.

Is It Better To Have Loved, And Have Lost?

Don't worry. There is very little that you can actually do in this game that a prodigious number of Daffodils and some boxed wine cannot amend. Unlike in real life, if a relationship goes down the tubes and your friend doesn't like you one tiny bit anymore, it's going to be 100% your fault, 100% of the time. Most likely, it will be because you gave them Broken Glasses twice a week, followed them around and rummaged through every single trash can in town, and then shot them with the Slingshot a whole bunch. If you did that, I'm so proud shame on you. People's likes and dislikes never change in this game, and you can even become friends with people over time if you simply talk to them every day. On the flip side of that, if you do not talk with someone at all in a day, your relationship with them decays just a teensy bit.

You will undoubtedly feel like there's just so much to do in a day, and not enough time in which to do it all. You're absolutely right! Don't overextend yourself, and if you wind up staying out late, make sure you start heading home well before 1am until you get the feel of how long it takes you to get back home. You fall unconscious at 2am, and get billed some of your precious money that you worked hard to accumulate.

I am left with the impression that you're not really meant to talk to every single person in town, every day. Hence the reason Birthdays are so important; one well-placed, high quality gift can set you forward leaps and bounds with your friend.

There is also a secret santa event in the winter which gives you a big multiplier to the gift you give, but you won't find out who your gift recipient is until several days before the event. This is another reason to become good friends with people, because let's face it - if they don't like you, do you think they're going to give you a good Christmas present?

Once you have reached a high level of affection with your intended, Pierre sends you a letter with some friendly advice on how to take things one step further with them. You can only do this once you've reached an eight heart relationship with them, but by that time, certainly you will have discovered what they do and do not like. Reaching that tenth heart with your sweetie will hardly be any trouble at all.


Eventually, you can even take things a step further, but you'll have to wait for a rainy day on the beach. What does this mean? You'll know it when you're ready. In the meantime, don't lose hope! Even the most introverted of us can find friendship and love in Stardew Valley.

[Sauron]

Just make sure to take them to a loved movie... thats where I tend to go wrong.

[Sauron]

Also depending on what they love in the game, they will usually love the same sort of item at the movie theater.

[Sauron]

Thank you for this guide!

[jacksonwa85]

I think pickled wheat is weirder than pickled tomatoes...

But anyway, this is a good guide! Moxie approves!

[Qonesu]

I really love this but I was hoping it was an IRL guide

[Cheese Larry]

Technically it's possible to get 4 hearts with anyone before the dance but some people's loved gifts are practically impossible to get early game. Leah, Harvey, and Emily are examples of people that you can conceivably dance with because salad and coffee are always sold at the saloon for pretty cheap, and Emily loves gems which, if you're hitting up the mines regularly, you can make work. You just need to also make sure that you're talking to them basically every day and give them their loved gifts twice a week!

It's a lot of dedication...but I adore Harvey so it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make

[lefdemon]

its hard to find things that people like, people all ways seem to love things that you have to craft with these crazy ingredients

[lefdemon]

Leah loves salad which can be bought at the saloon for 220 gold

[Gondola]

Nice guide, but I wanted to tell you that within the first month I achieved to get Emily to 8 Hearts.
Maybe you'll want to update the guide :P. I don't actually know how I did it, but I did it ^^.
Anyway, I liked the way you designed the guide and it did contain some valuable tips, so keep up the good work. :)

[Russian Sly]

So much irrelevant information just to make text pretty, that it is difficult to read.
Can easily be shrinked down at least 3 times.