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What is the name of this love triangle painting?

munchingzombie — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:56:26 -0800

Help me remember this painting! The subject is three people in a cafe or club. One (a soldier I think) is checking out a woman across the room. She in turn is checking out another man who happens to be checking out the first. If I recall correctly, a green light is shining down on at least one of the subjects, the gay man. This was possibly painted in Weimar Germany, but I could be wrong. The style certainly fits into that time period. Thank you metafilter.

Iron Love Triangle

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:06:40 -0800

I have two best friends. I was about to confess my love to one, when he told me he was dating the other. Coping mechanisms? I actually can't believe I'm posting one of these.

3 gay men, we'll call them me, Dan, and Tom. Dan and I are both on a full-year study abroad to Tom's home country; Dan and I know each other from the summer before through a mutual friend, Dan and Tom know each other because Tom studied abroad last year at Dan's home university. The three of us do everything together - I can't think of a single night out in the past month that hasn't been the three of us plus some combination of others. They form the foundation of my social life in this country.

When I first met Dan, I developed a minor crush on him. I quickly put it in the drawer, because we were both going to be really the only person we knew in a foreign country, and it didn't seem like a good thing to expose to screw ups. It faded, as it should have.

After coming back from winter break at the end of December, however, my feelings for Dan returned. They've intensified over the past two months, to the point where this past weekend I decided that I needed to come clean and just get a resolution one way or the other. I decided that our friendship was definitely strong enough to survive a rejection, and figured out what I wanted to say.

Tonight, I got up the courage to talk to him, said "Dan, I need to talk to you about something." I went down to his room (we live in a dorm together), and we made smalltalk for a while. Just as I was about to launch into my preplanned statement, he said "I have something to tell you. Tom and I are kinda going out now."

I played the good friend and pretended to be happy for them, even counseling Dan through his fears about screwing up their friendship. All the while I'm freaking out inside. Apparently, the backstory is that last week Monday, they hooked up and decided "Well, we're best friends, so why not?"

(I know it was only a week ago, but I find for various reasons that it is unlikely that they will break up soon.)

This situation is obviously terrible and painful for me. My two best friends, who form the majority of my social universe in a foreign country, are going out - and I have very strong feelings for one of them.

After talking to a lot of friends, I've decided that I'm going to have to let Dan know what's going on, as he will undoubtedly be asking soon why I'm acting weird. I've decided on full disclosure so that they will know where I stand and why I'm having a difficult time with it, and so that they can hopefully take steps to mitigate the effects their relationship will have on me. I am almost certain that is the reaction that they will have - they are reasonable, good friends, who will have my interests at heart.

The more difficult problem, and what I need help with, is how to cope with the situations I will be finding myself in, as no amount of their mitigation will completely eliminate the painful emotions I'll be feeling in their company. I would like to continue hanging out with them, but will also obviously be working on expanding into new friendships. I plan on seeing a professional as soon as possible.

My question boils down to: what advice do you have for me in coping with this situation, and all the future situations that it will create?

I've set up the e-mail address ironlovetriangle@googlemail.com for questions or to contact me on the side. Anonymous because I don't want this drama associated with my name for the rest of the time the internet exists.

Love triangle involving your best friend

spacesbetween — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 10:52:45 -0800

How would you handle a love triangle where your best friend likes the same girl you do and that she secretly has been hooking up with both of us? Ok ill try to explain the most I can while keeping it brief. I knew this girl, jane, for almost one year, we dated for like 2 weeks. She was awesome to talk to and I definetly enjoyed spending time with her, but I realized during these 2 weeks that it wouldnt work out between us because Im more insecure/jealous--she has had more experience with dating then me (Im still a virgin)--and she was very flirtatious and I dont think I could have handled that. Anyway we stayed really close friends, or at least I thought we were.

Fast forward like 5months since 2 week dating thing and we end up hooking up again at a party. I realize now that I still have feelings for her that didnt go away (I thought they subside) but I didnt want to approach it incase it was just one of those things you do when your drunk. I leave to go out of the country for a month as vacation and that night was still in my mind.

Meantime she became really good friends with my best friend, john. This was really suprising as he had always said he would never date her, didnt consider her hot, she wasnt cool. But whatever in 2 weeks they became really close and when I got back he asked me for permission to go out with her. I was really in shock, as I had always joked about them getting married since he essentially didnt like her. So i told him that this had all the elements of incoming drama and that I still had residual feelings for her and if they were to go out then I couldnt be friends with her because of what could happen. I decide I should tell her what I thought of the whole situation too since she was one of my close friends as well.

I tell her and she says she couldnt live without being friends with me so she would rather not, she also tells me she has been having the same feelings for me since that night we hooked up. We make out 2 nights in a row. I feel great that she has the same feelings for me but at the sametime I realize now how this will bother my best friend john. She says she will handle it and explain our feelings for each other to him. The next week he doesnt bring up anything involving her or me, which is strange since he usually would have bitched to me about it, something I should have put more thought into.

We make out more times since then and I start to feel really attatched and want to make it official so I decide to ask my friend john about it. He says he has been making out with her for the past weeks also and that he too has the same feelings for her. At this point im pretty pissed seeing as how this was the exact situation we tried not to happen. She told john not to tell me about any of the hookups they had because she didnt want her private life out there and she didnt tell him any of our makeouts either. Now I know I should have instantly told him me and her making out but she told me that "he didnt want to talk about it" so I believed her. Another thing is on oneday she made out with both of us without either of us knowing. We both felt like she could be our girlfriend and that our emotions were genuine. We hatch out a plan to make sure there is no mistakes, I talk to her and confess my love for her and ask if there will be any problems with john, she says she would totally go out with me but would feel bad for john.

I confront her about it the next day, she apologizes and said she was confused and that she really does like both of us. I felt betrayed because I thought she was a really close friend someone I shared alot of my own emotions, I say I dont ever want to talk to her again. My friend john on the otherhand still wants to be friends with her. After my confrontation with her she goes to him and says she loves him and cant live without him.He too is still a virgin and this would be his first for everything, same for me.We're both 22, she is 21 if age matters. I have a feeling that he will go back with her even after all this.

How can I trust that my best friend wont go back to her and hook up or what can I do to explain to him its not a good idea? What would you do in such a situation? I dont know if I could still be best friends with him if he were to ignore my feelings. Any advice on how to handle the aftermath is great.Sorry this has been longer then I thought it would be, thanks for reading.