That's not the reality of the game at all. There are a lot of choices, and while yes, some paths do cross and certain tasks have multiple uses and are used to accomplish multiple things in the game, all characters have their own unique quests and stories.What is the point going after a girl if you have to do most of the quest for everybody anyways?
What a linear, boring game
And let me tell you i played the very first version of this game with the blinding white walls everywhere.. It was more fun than this
For example if you need a particular character to like you in order for them to help you with something, you have to get on their good side. You don't have to play their entire story to get them to like you, but you just need enough points with them so that you are friendly with them (which usually doesn't take very long). Doing the beginning of their path can help expedite that, but it's not required for the other goal.
Another example is like sobering Patrick up. It has more than one use case in the game, but it's just a small subplot and doesn't take very long to do. The game doesn't make you go through one girls' entire questline to complete another. More so, there are small sub plot lines that need to be in certain states in order to unlock some content or progress, but they are typically pretty easy tasks. There are just several items and tasks that have multiple use cases in the game is all, and in some cases, branching in the sense that you have to decide what you are going to use it for, which adds a bit more strategy to the game IMO.
Overall, the number of tasks that have multiple use cases compared to the vast majority of content in the game is miniscule by comparison.