The Trivialities of a 3-Piece Friendship
Normal, healthy 3-piece friendships are dangerously underrepresented in the pie chart of friendship varieties. A booming 52% is dedicated to 2-piece partnerships, like those of the Steves who changed the way we use technology, and a 38% chunk is devoted to abnormal, unhealthy 3-piece friendships, where 1 character just occupies space while the other 2 are fully aware that they’re each other’s soulmates (ahem, Monica and Rachel). The remaining 10% is divvied up into large groups of friends who’ve been together since college, people who claim to be their own best friends, and the category about which I’m going to write.
Pop culture refers to 3-piece friendships as the kind where 2 probably haven’t spoken to each other in years, and it’s the responsibility of the 3rd to bring them together, such as on a bachelor trip to Spain for illustration purposes. It also paints the picture of 3 best friends who live together and work together and know each other’s daily occurrences only moments after they actually take place, such that nothing can ever come in the middle of their friendship. Well, that’s fiction, and it’s pretty far from reality.
In normal, healthy 3-piece friendships, there is a constantly changing dynamic. It’s difficult to place your finger on a point in time where all 3 participants are equally tight and informed about the others’ lives. The dynamic shifts like the moving staircases in Hogwarts, and each person finds themselves at the edge without the staircase attached, watching it move floors and not knowing how to bring it back. More often than not, conversations are interspersed with exclamations of ‘oh yeah, you told me this!’, while 1 friend clearly wasn’t told this and just has to nod with a hint of curiosity and jealousy. The conversation progresses, and the friend finds themself wanting to scream ‘yes, I’m also aware of this information!’ mid-way, attempting to jump onto the staircase before it shifts and leaves them behind.
In reality, all 3 love and cherish the others deeply and completely, and find themselves wanting to share their lives with both at the exact same point in time. However, geographies, time zone differences, careers and families come in the way, delaying the opportunity for a meaningful connection. As these characters evolve, change and develop new and varied interests, it becomes difficult to identify the primary nerve that brought them together in the first place. It’s intact of course, but becomes slightly buried under all that evolution.
When just 2 people are involved, it’s easier to mend any kinks because the equation has only 2 variables. Throw in a 3rd variable, and we’re all gasping for air (I’m looking at you, 7th-grade math teachers). As the characters involved clumsily transform into adults, they constantly figure out how to maintain the erstwhile perfectly equilateral triangle, but instead watch it morph into something awkward and obtuse.
Nonetheless, there’s an indescribable safety in a normal, healthy, 3-piece friendship. You know that you can talk to either one about your insecurities, and they will do the job of filling the other in, in case you haven’t within a stipulated period. You’re gaining 2 opinions, sometimes extremely different from each other, but with a compounding effect on the value you receive. When you screw up, there’s room for one to be stern with you and the other to reassure you, promising you that the other loves you and will come around.
In such friendships, all the variables carry equal significance; but they’re just that, variables. They are unknown and solving the equation takes hard work and effort and some tears will inevitably be shed and some giggles will 100% be disseminated. There’s no ugly history, no suppressed anger, no jealousy — just 3 people figuring out how to keep their friendship growing as they too grow.
The fact that any 2 may have stronger similar interests, provides scope for the 3rd to be exposed to and learn more. The fact that any 2 may know more about each other’s lives, enables the 3rd to offer a fresh perspective that perhaps the 2 hadn’t thought of. The fact that while the ‘any 2’ are perhaps strengthening their bond they miss the 3rd, is a testament to the wholesomeness of the friendship altogether.
I call these ‘trivialities’ because they are anything but. They are tough to comprehend and manoeuvre, and even tougher to overcome. In my opinion, it’s such ‘trivialities’ that make relationships classifiable as those worth fighting for and make them feel just as indestructible after years of change and evolution.
