Garden spider loves/wars

I watched these two garden spiders for some time as they 'played with' each other along a few strands of silk. I couldn't tell whether it was love or war acting itself out. The one on the right is definitely a female Areneus diadematus. I think the one on the left must be a male of the same species, with its much smaller, flatter abdomen and larger carapace, but I thought they were supposed to be a lot smaller overall. The female was static, seemingly in a defensive mode, for over 5 minutes while the 'male' made many advances and retreats, touching the other spider and, I thought, trying to get its head parts past the defences. At times there was a grappling of legs before retreat. Just once the 'male' got past the legs and there was a brief embrace (see extra photo) before separating. I started off thinking it was a conflict, then thought it might be the preliminaries to mating...and now I'm left unsure!