If you’ve ever indulged in media as a person of the modern age, it goes without saying that you’ve almost certainly seen an example of the dreaded love triangle. You know the deal: person B likes person A, person C also likes person A, and A can’t choose between the two. As a result, persons B and C always end up in conflict with each other, battling it out for the affections of person A until A decides (and A always decides, there are no results in which A chooses to be single in these scenarios). I call this the traditional love triangle setup, because it is the one most often seen represented.

While the setup of the dreaded triangle is basic and generally inoffensive, the execution is almost always stale, overdone, and a general waste of time for the poor person invested in this story. We’ve seen these types of love triangles before: in Twilight, The Hunger Games, and many other forms of media. There are so many ways to make this dreaded love triangle work in a fresh, innovative way for the audience, and yet so few writers take the bait. I’m not saying we should get rid of love related conflicts, as that would mean doing away with all romantic comedies ever made. I’m proposing a reform of the traditional love triangle. Let’s look at just a few of my personal favorite ways to resolve this dreaded plot:

1. The traditional love triangle that simply ends in order to preserve friendships. I call this one the “Friendship Triangle.” In this case, the three (or more) people involved all decide to end their romantic troubles because they are all good friends with each other, and they do not want to ruin said friendship. They might need to take some time off to let their crushes on each other fade, but it can and does work in real life. Crushes end. It’s not always be-all-end-all true love that can't and doesn't go away. Sometimes feelings for people go away on their own. A situation in which everyone values their friendships just as much, if not more than their own romantic needs would be a refreshing change of approach for the traditional love triangle.
2. The first solution is what I call the “Love Line.” In this situation, person A and person B are in a loving, committed relationship, and person C is in love with one of the people involved in that relationship. In this situation, person C has no hopes of ever getting together with A or B. Potential execution: the story is an examination of person C and their romantic trends. For example, person C learns that they only fall for people that are unavailable. They learn that they do this because they believe they are unworthy of love, so they choose unavailable people to prove to themselves that they are unworthy of loving. The story turns into a journey of self discovery where person C learns that they are worthy of requited love and either ends the story single and happy, or finds somebody that returns their affections.
3. The next solution is what I call “True Triangle” solution. This solution is a simple situation in which everybody dates each other. This that can solve almost any love triangle. Of course, not everyone has to be in love with each other equally for this to work: you can have person A date both B and C, while the three of them communicate honestly and openly about any feelings of jealousy that come up and navigate the relationship like mature adults. You can also just have all of the romantic parties live in a giant house together and date one another in a constant, enormous cuddle pile. Whatever floats your boat. Polyamorous relationships occur in real life and there are many success stories, so it’s not an unrealistic solution.
4. This solution is what I call “Make it Gay.” In this situation, the traditional love triangle dynamic can be used, but instead of the traditional heterosexual relationships shown, the relationships are changed by making one to all three of the characters involved LGBT. You can have Person A be a girl, B, be a boy, and C be a lesbian girl. You can keep the heterosexual dynamics and simply make one of the characters involved explicitly bisexual, which would increase representation from a much-ignored queer identity. You can have all three members of the triangle be gay men. You can have person A be a non-binary person who B and C (of any gender) desire a relationship with them. The possibilities of the “Make it Gay” solution are really endless, and since LGBT people get little representation as it is, even cliché tropes are made less so when LGBT people are involved.
5. The final solution is an approach that has recently started to come into practice, most famously through the show The Legend of Korra. I call this the “Make Them Bi” approach. This is a twist on the traditional heterosexual love triangle as I described in the introduction of this article. Again, we’ve all seen it before. Person A is a girl and has to decide between two boys (persons B and C), or vice versa with the boy in the center of the struggle. Unlike “make them gay,” this situation starts out as a traditional heterosexual love triangle, but is only subverted at the very end when the two pursuers in the triangle (who must be of the same gender for this to work) decide to do away with person A and date each other instead. They may or may not have initially known they were bisexual, but it’s a great twist that went over very well with fans when The Legend of Korra ended their love triangle with Korra and Asami deciding to date each other in the series finale.

In conclusion, the love triangle does not have to be the bane of our existence. There are many solutions, even more than what I’ve mentioned, that can freshen up this tired old trope and make it new and exciting again. Fiction writers everywhere: let’s explore these possibilities!