Love triangle is different, and usually context is competitive non-dating and usually in a monogamous context.

A “love triangle” is different from a “triangle”.

A love triangle is what we see in movies from Hollywood, most commonly with two guys fighting over winning a girl or something.

A triangle, when it comes to ENM, is when all three people sleep together.

Whereas a triad (ENM term, again) would be like three people (persons A, B, and C), all living alone. Look at the arrows in the picture, those are the relationships. A and B are in a relationship, but all three are not in a relationship.

The way to think about it is, with three people in a triad, there are only three relationships. With a triangle (or another shape where everybody’s in a relationship, like a quad) you add an extra relationship count for the group itself. So for a triangle (or whatever people want to call it if they want to differentiate) where it is threesomes and they all travel as a pack, there are four relationships: each couple and the group itself.

And to make it more complicated, the shapes aren’t necessarily closed: some or all of them can have other relationships, sometimes even different types, too. Like three people living and in a group relationship, and person A is simultaneously in a different trianlge or triad, and person C might have basically just a fuck buddy, or even just a cuddle partner, like if that cuddle partner has really really similar high compatibility emotionally but not sexually.

ENM is great.