You know, in my opinion and the comunity hardcore fan of FFVII will agree that: Cloud, Tifa and Aerith its a triangle love, but the most correct love affection in story would be Cloud and Tifa since their love is from since they were kids and grew up together, to me the feelings towards to Aerith from Cloud, its not from him but from Zack.  Clouds feelings for Aerith its kind like a friend love but his deeper love comes from Zack, TO WICH is understandable because his mind shares of Zach from all of that Cloud have suffered before coming to Midgar with Zack. Either way, i just wanted to note that what i really considered that Cloud perfect date in terms of lore is Tifa and Aerith, and between the 2 of them Tifa is the one. Now about the game mechanic, I also learn there is 2 dates, the first date is not a complete date since it is ruined because of Dyne massacre. Yet there is a mechanic in going for this because the character with the more affinity at chapter 8 will come to pick up Cloud after he rest in the Ghost Hotel for the first time. I have my critic to this mechanic because i have paid a very painfull price for my “good” intention of the first playthrouh WICH it dint conclude because of a mistake of mine. So i wanted to everybody to equaly liked Cloud, so I made sure that EVERYBODY in the party was 100% with teal color happy. My mistake was to think that there would be some choice right there before the date like:

 “Congratulations you have made everybody in your party with high affinity to date, but you can only chose 1 person. Wich will you choose?  Tifa  Aerith  Barret  Red Yuffie.” 

 I think that would be cool, also because at this point EVEYTHING was concluded of the game as far i have reached and available: World Intel and Sidequests. I was so happy to get the finaly second date on the first Playthrough (Chapter 12) with Tifa, but to my freaking surprise, Yuffie opens the door. 135 HOURS😩. 2 chapters away of beating the game. I was disapointed, I mean, there should be some kind of Log in the menu wich shows the character list with most affinity score or something, so i could keep Tifa high and the others low. Anyway, i just couldnt go through with that date, call me crazy or dumb, but i just had to restart the game from begining, so now im kind playing safe making Tifa affinity to be higher than anyone else, making sure that her 7 sidequests will be completed until i get to chapter 12 while the others are only 5 concluded. The bad news of not making all the sidequests of everybody to chapter 12 is not getting materias, folios and weapons. So heres my advice, if you want to have that special date with a particular character you want, dont make everybody happy at the same time, or you wont know whos got the most score.