The Nature of Threes

Three-way relationships occur all the time, whether they be friendships, business related or romantic.  Sadly, no matter how wonderfully harmonious the three may be at the time of meeting, most three-way relationships are essentially unstable and will deteriorate in the end.  It's one of the most painful situations to get oneself into, but unfortunately it happens all the time.  The happy group of three will eventually become two plus one.  And one on its own isn't worth an awful lot and ends up getting excluded.  Which is, without a doubt, the most painful position of all.

In romantic situations, such as the Taiorato I'm now preaching, this can become rather obvious.  The happy three-way friendship was put under pressure when the three in question turned teenage and started to become very interested in romance.  Something had to give.  In this case it was Taichi, giving way and allowing Sora and Yamato to get together and eventually marry and have their two gorgeous little kids... you should know the story by now.  This part has caused a lot of controversy, many people blaming Sora for 'breaking Tai's heart' when she went for Yamato.  However, due to the nature of threesomes, if Sora had gone with Taichi then Yamato would have ended up being hurt and excluded.  And if we had ended up with Taito then Sora would have been the one getting hurt - although I'm sure that very few people would notice or care. *pouts*

There is a way to avert the heartache that is the inevitable result of most threes: introduce a fourth person.  That way someone who is feeling left out has someone else to talk to.  You can probably see this happening in digimon if you look closely; perhaps not in the case of Taiorato, but more so in the TK/Kari/Davis disaster.  Davis eventually started to leave Kari and TK alone when he became friends with Ken (and you can take that any way you like. ^_~).

This whole little essay may have been a little depressing for anyone who is currently in one of the aforementioned three-way relationships (of any sort).  Can I please take this opportunity to say that not every threesome is doomed to collapse.  I myself am in a three-way friendship and have been for over a year.  We do have our rough spots (I once got rather depressed when I thought I was being deliberately excluded) but that certainly did NOT end anything.  We got back together and we're now going on as if nothing had ever happened - except, perhaps, that my friends and I are a little more aware of how fragile friendships can be at times.

I'm really just trying to shed a little light on the whole idea of triangles and three-way relationships in general.  I hope I've done a reasonable job and haven't confused anyone needlessly.  Please just keep what I've said in mind whilst reading some of the stuff on this site, or if you ever find yourself in a three.

Well, that was just so helpful, wasn't it?

'It's always easy to be wise in hindsight.'

Who told you that?

Um... I think it was Rocke&Roll, actually.

I think maybe I should just leave this one alone.  Please note that I took a lot of the stuff in here from something that was in the Age (Aussie newspaper) a few Saturdays ago.  So... yeah.  I think you get the idea.  Later!