Love triangle

A love triangle is a scenario or circumstance, usually depicted as a rivalry, in which two people are pursuing or romantically involved with the same person, or one person in a relationship is simultaneously involved with someone else. It usually implies an arrangement unsuitable for at least one party, with jealousy and unrequited love as the driving emotions, and it typically does not mean the circular chain where one person loves a second, who loves a third, who loves the first. It is a common narrative device in theater, literature and film, popular in opera, romance novels, soap operas, romantic comedy and manga: Romeo and Juliet, The Count of Monte Cristo, Gone with the Wind, Titanic and Twilight all run on one.

For serial writers the triangle is the long-game version of romantic conflict: it can hold tension for hundreds of chapters, but each contender's feelings and knowledge must stay consistent, which is character relationship mapping work. The harem convention is the scaled-up sibling: three or more suitors around one protagonist.