I felt proud, but even Luke2005 also felt a twinge of "the universe is suboptimal," because she hadn't been able to engage that connection any further. The cultural scripts defining our relationship said that only one man owned her heart. But surely that wasn't optimal for producing utilons?

I think you're too quick to ascribe to poorly optimized social norms behaviors that are entirely sensible as preference optimization. If an individual is wired for monogamy by nature, then social behaviors that protect the monogamy of their relationships will improve their utility.

Were you dissatisfied because your utility function wasn't compatible with hers or those which produced the norms she was following, or were you finding that utility function itself suboptimal?