in case you need help or advice

My Rune Factory 4 is arriving today, I'm stupid excited. This is my first Rune Factory, and I'm a big Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons fan. I've been browsing around for "before you start" tips, and found some good stuff, but I have a few questions still.

Is there anything that brings down everyone's friendship level, like in HM when you throw trash in the water?

I saw how you can have multiple bfs/gfs- is there some trigger that makes them the bf/gf or is it a heart/friendship level? I like to see as many events as I can in one play, but I see it will be more difficult to marry if I get too friendly.

And you can dismiss monsters from the barn right? I saw a warning about how you can only have X monsters so be careful who you pick, but another tip that says some quest you need to capture a whole bunch of monsters, so don't hold back.

If there is anything else like "damn, I wish I knew that before I played" I'd love to hear. I've read you can take this game slow, and not miss much, that sounds good for a first exploration.

Thanks so much!

/r/runefactory Thread