Walking down Hillhouse to get your flu shot at DUH, you see your former flame holding hands with his new significant other; his other hand grips a wad of condoms. Anyone with an ex at Yale learns quickly that the love triangle is an awkward shape.

Putting myself in the shoes of a heterosexual female: what am I supposed to think every time I look at that skank currently screwing the former love of my life?

She’s fat. Her laugh sounds like a giraffe dying. I heard she borrowed mascara from some random dirty ho and it gave her herpes of the eye. She has scars between her toes from the clipping of her webbed feet.

Did I mention she’s fat?

She’s so very fat. I’ve never seen a person with a greater aura of fatitude. I think she goes to liposuction clinics and sucks on the drainage pipes. She guzzles vats full of blubber. How else could she get so obese? She’s like the McDonald’s dude from Super Size Me. Only uglier. And fatter. What a heifer.

And everyone likes her: my friends, my acquaintances, even I like her.

Whore.

And it’s not like I’m in love with him anymore. Obviously. I just can’t understand why he’s not in love with me. So I can’t move on until I’ve proven that I’m the hottest, smartest, most pliable piece of ass this side of the Mississippi. I’ve got it all. So what the hell does she have? She has him.

But a triangle isn’t one-sided. Now I’m in the heifer’s shoes:

He’s still in love with his ex-girlfriend. I know it.

She’s the standard against which he weighs me. Why did they break up? Shit, what’s wrong with him?

What if he has ovo-testes?

We can work through it. Of course that bitch couldn’t work through it, she’s so closed-minded. She’s probably even a Republican.

Scarlet-red slut.

What if it’s not that? What if he wants me to pee on him? What if (oh God!)

We can work through it. Closed-minded bitch can’t even dabble in a little water sports.

What if he wants to dress up like his dead mother and kill blonde starlets while they shower? What if he wants me to help?

I can’t believe that whale of a vagina wouldn’t buy a creepy hotel and help execute gruesome murders to make her man happy. Prude.

And look at her. She’s really let herself go since they broke up. She’s gotten uglier. And fatter.

What a heifer.

The love triangle is a sharp, shady, sassy-ass wedge between that boy and his bitches. So, yes, it’s bad. But it gets worse.

The heterosexual love triangle is really a V, with that guy at the center and his ho’s on the wings.

Now, twist that V into something darker, turn the triangle upside-down and paint it pink; replace all the girls with guys and try to keep your mind from breaking: the love triangle closes on all three sides. The skank currently dating the former love of your life is the other former love of your life. Long term relationship ‘A’ – your first for everything – is now getting down and dirty with long term relationship ‘B’ – the first time everything was good. In this triangle, emotions have flown (as well as fluids) on all three sides; everyone has slept with everyone. And your exes are getting serious; they’re talking marriage.

Sorry, civil union. (Thanks, Connecticut).

Do they talk about me with each other? Do they compare notes on my dick size and body-hair patterns? When they experience that embarrassing brain-fart and scream the name of an ex-boyfriend during sex, they both scream mine.

Doesn’t ‘A’ care that B’s tongue has all the kissing panache of a fly-catching, fast-darting, fork-tipped lizard? Doesn’t ‘B’ care that ‘A’ washes his hands with Listerine after sex? Whatever. They’ve obviously stopped going to the gym. They’ve gotten uglier. And fatter.

What heifers.

Both of them.

It’s the strange paradox of homosexual friendships: your bro’s are also your ho’s. You can’t really put one before the other. Unless you have straight friends (Ha!), your best friends are possible future husbands, and possible competition at the same time. It’s the opposite of pretty girls having ugly friends to make themselves feel better; gay men try to surround themselves with a bevy of butt-lovin’ beauties. Our friends are a reserve harem – the boyfriends-to-be in case the current love-of-my-life turns out only to be the love-of-the-first-part-of-my-sophomore-year-of-college.

Yale may be the Gay Ivy, but “one in four” is a bunch of bull. While I’m sure we have a higher percentage of out gay men than BYU, it’s still an incestuous little community. Group dynamics are bound to get uncomfortable when you and your ex share the same friends. Accrue enough exes in your homosexual harem, and they’re going to start dating each other. It’s only a matter of time before the triangle becomes a square, closing on all four sides, with diagonals across.

There’s really only one thing you can do: keep going to the gym, you’re starting to look a little soft around the middle.

Chad Callaghan loves hat tricks, but prefers a perfect pair. In bed.