Science fiction and fantasy have long used triads as a narrative shortcut for power. Three witches, three fates, three muses. But recent shows have made the romantic aspect literal.
In Coven of the Tides, three sirens—Lena, Sam, and Wren—are bound by a blood ritual that forces them to share emotions. If one falls in love, all three feel the heartbeat. The romantic storyline kicks off when Lena falls for a human marine biologist. But instead of jealousy, Sam (the pragmatic one) realizes she is attracted to Wren (the wild card) for the first time.
The show brilliantly depicts three girls having relationships that defy monogamous logic. When Lena kisses the biologist, Wren feels a phantom joy; when Sam finally confesses her love to Wren during a storm, Lena weeps with relief from across the island. The "love triangle" becomes a "love ecosystem." The villain is not another woman—it is the outside world that insists they must choose one partner, one heart, one path.
In a standard romance, the conflict is "Will they/won't they?" In a triad romance, the conflict is usually "How can this work?"
Of course, not every attempt at three girls having relationships is successful. The bad ones fall into two traps:
Trap 1: The Harem Fantasy. This occurs when the story is written from a male gaze. Suddenly, the three girls exist only to kiss each other for the benefit of a male protagonist. There is no emotional interiority. They are props.
Trap 2: The Tragedy Mandate. This is the idea that polyamorous or triad relationships must end in disaster. One girl leaves crying. Two girls pair off, excluding the third. The moral is "three is a crowd." While drama is necessary, the automatic tragedy is a tired trope that discourages real-life exploration. three girls having sex
The best stories avoid both. They allow the triad to fail or succeed based on character flaws, not because the universe punishes non-monogamy.
Consider the indie hit novel (and cult classic streaming series) The Scorched Quad. The story follows three college roommates: Maya, the pragmatic poet; Chloe, the golden-retriever extrovert; and Priya, the mysterious transfer student.
The romantic storyline begins innocently. Maya and Chloe have been "best friends who sometimes hold hands after wine" for two years. Enter Priya, who is assigned to their quad. Priya doesn't play games. She asks Maya out directly. For six episodes, the audience watches Maya fall for Priya’s intensity while Chloe watches from the sidelines, realizing her "friendship" was actually a slow-burn romance she was too scared to name.
The genius of this storyline is that it never makes Priya the villain. Instead, we see three girls having relationships that are romantic, platonic, and antagonistic simultaneously. Chloe teaches Priya how to make pancakes. Priya helps Chloe admit she is bisexual. And Maya? She learns that loving one person doesn't mean you stop loving another—it just means you have to tell the truth.
The climax isn't a catfight. It is a quiet scene on a fire escape where all three admit they are in love with a different version of each other. The resolution? A fluid polycule that endures through graduation. It is messy, utopian, and deeply human.
Sofia leads romantic walking tours through the oldest district of Lisbon. She knows every tragic love story—the fado singer who died of longing, the prince who married a commoner, the two women who carved their initials into a monastery wall in 1780. Science fiction and fantasy have long used triads
What she doesn’t tell the tourists is that she’s in love with a ghost. Not literally—but Clara, her ex, died two years ago in a way that left no body, only a voicemail: “I’ll call you tomorrow.” Sofia replays it nightly. She dates, but she compares every woman to a memory. Her current “relationship” is with a kind baker named Inês, who brings her warm bread and asks no questions. But Inês is not a placeholder; she’s a door. The storyline forces Sofia to decide: does she stay loyal to a beautiful past, or betray it for a possible future? The climax comes when she finally visits Clara’s empty grave and leaves the voicemail there—for good.
The most powerful evidence for this genre’s importance comes from the audience. BookTok is flooded with videos of young women crying over fan art of the Scorched Quad triad. Wattpad stories featuring "#Triad" have billions of reads.
One commenter writes: "I was 22, living with my two best friends. We fell into a triad by accident—during COVID lockdown. We didn't have a word for it. Then I read 'The Scorched Quad' and realized we weren't broken. We were just geometric."
Another says: "I am asexual and biromantic. Seeing a triad where one pair doesn't have sex but still says 'I love you' changed my life. I stopped feeling like I was asking for too much."
These are not niche emotions. These are the quiet desires of millions of women who want intimacy that looks like a garden, not a single straight line.
Why do audiences crave stories of three girls having relationships and romantic storylines? The answer lies in the "Triadic Closure" principle. In sociology, a triad is the smallest unstable social group—it always has the potential to shift from a dyad (two against one) to a coalition. Furthermore, these narratives provide a safety net
As viewers and readers, we are addicted to the wiggle room. In a duo, the romantic outcome is binary (together or apart). In a trio, the permutations are endless:
Furthermore, these narratives provide a safety net. When one romantic storyline crashes and burns (as it often does in a three-act structure), the other two girls provide the "B-plot" comfort. The audience is never left in complete emotional despair because there are two other heartbeats to listen to.
Not all trios are supportive. Some of the most gripping "three girls having relationships" narratives involve the love triangle, where two friends desire the same person. The film John Tucker Must Die offers a comedic, revenge-fueled take on this, but for a deeper, more psychological exploration, we turn to Gossip Girl (Blair, Serena, and the revolving door of Nate and Dan) or the modern literary sensation Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney.
In Conversations with Friends, Frances, Bobbi, and the married couple Melissa and Nick create a complex quadrilateral, but the core friction lies between the two ex-girlfriends, Frances and Bobbi. Their romantic storylines are inextricably linked.
When three girls are involved in overlapping romantic storylines, the question is no longer "who ends up with whom?" but rather "what does loyalty look like?" These narratives are brutal because they show that love does not conquer all; sometimes, it conquers a friendship, leaving ruins in its wake.