Can 3-person friendships work?

At a luxe island resort in Thailand, three childhood best friends are on vacation, having left their jobs, kids and partners at home so they can reconnect and recharge with the help of Reiki, yoga and wine. That hotel? The White Lotus — the fictional setting of Max’s hit TV show, now in its third season. The comedy-drama provides an incisive take on politics, class, gender roles and relationships — and this season, it’s the trio’s fraught friendship that’s under the microscope.

To a casual resort guest, it may seem like Kate (played by Leslie Bibb), Laurie (Carrie Coon) and Jacklyn (Michelle Monaghan) are just gal pals enjoying some time off. But in reality — and what is apparent to viewers — their friendship is anything but easy. The trio subtly competes for who has the lowest body fat mass. They have snarky side conversations about whatever friend went to bed early that night’s plastic surgery or political choices. They pass not-so-subtle passive-aggressive judgment on one another’s love lives and parenting styles. This friendship is stressful — for those watching along at home and to the friends who, when alone, look like they’re having anything but fun. The biggest mystery on The White Lotus isn’t the identity of the dead body teased at the beginning of the season … it’s whether this group will remain friends when they leave the island.

"This is a pretty realistic version of female friendships, especially ones who have known each other since high school," commenter Annette Hunt shared on Max's Instagram page. "Any time you have an odd number of friends, someone’s gonna get ganged up on by the other ones."

As Hunt notes, the pop culture threesome is true to life. TikTok creator Sahar Dahi shared a similar experience. “Every single group of three I've ever been in has been a complete disaster,” she said. “I’ve decided I'm never gonna travel with groups of three, go out in groups of three, have a main group of three … there’s too much, like, ganging up, a lot of talking s*** and bullying.”

Then there’s Brandon Edelman, co-host of the "Between Us Girlies" podcast, who said that he’s happy with his four-person squad because groups of three are a recipe for disaster. “Anytime I’ve been in a friend group of three, someone is always the third wheel,” he reflected. “Especially in high school, when you're younger, two people latch on to each other, and the third person notices — and everybody notices. And I honestly feel like sometimes as an adult, that still happens.”

So are groups of three actually problematic, or do they just get a bad rap? Here’s what some experts have to say.

You’re inviting exclusion into your friendship

Groups of three aren’t inherently bad but they do add an extra layer of complexity to friendship than when two people are hanging out.

Psychotherapist Barbie Atkinson of Catalyst Counseling tells Yahoo Life that while three-person friendships can be “really enriching,” you have to be “more intentional” than you would be in two-person friendships to avoid conflict and hurt feelings.

Spending time in a group of three can easily leave one person feeling left out. No two friendships are exactly the same, so it's natural for someone to feel like the other two are closer or that their voice carries less weight in the group because, often, that's the reality. But according to Atkinson, this imbalance isn't always personal or malicious — it's simply harder to give two people equal attention at the same time.

One example Atkinson gives is when planning a dinner with your trio. If you live closer to one of the friends, you will likely end up picking a place more convenient for two out of the three people — at least, if you’re not intentional about it. “You naturally exclude, and that can feel tricky,” she says.

Three-person friend groups can lead to triangulation

Sometimes, however, the hurt caused by a friendship with a group of three goes beyond inadvertent exclusion — especially when the group’s balance is thrown off by conflict.

One of the biggest problems with three-person friend groups is the likelihood of “triangulation,” Victoria Kress, professor of psychological sciences and counseling at Youngstown State University, tells Yahoo Life. This is when two people bond at the expense of the third person — like on The White Lotus, when Jaclyn and Laurie gossip about Kate’s political and religious leanings after she’s gone to bed for the night. While this talk connects them with each other, it alienates Kate in the process — and when she witnesses it, she’s left feeling hurt and uneasy.

“If one person is experiencing tension with another person in the group, they’ll often go to the person they aren’t experiencing tension with to try to diffuse it, so they don’t feel so alone and feel connected,” she explains, “but this is a really unhealthy and unfair dynamic to the person who is being talked about, because they don’t get an opportunity to protect or defend themselves.”

And you might end up triangulating with different members of the group at different points, as is the case on The White Lotus. That means that whatever conflict you’re having never really gets resolved: You’re talking about people without actually talking to them.

“Healthy relationships involve people talking directly with each other about their issues and concerns and communicating those and working through those so that they can become closer and build genuine intimacy,” Kress says.

Power imbalances come into play

There are also power imbalances at play with groups of three, Kress says, as often one person in the group wants to be the leader. This isn’t a problem if that person is operating from a place of kindness and looking out for the needs of the group. But as Kress explains, if they’re more interested in control and status, that can open up room for conflict, particularly if there are people in the group who don't really assert themselves.

You know how Regina George (Rachel McAdams) is the leader of The Plastics in Mean Girls — while Gretchen (Lacey Chabert) is content to be walked all over … until her whole “we should all just stab Caesar” freak out? Kress says that groups of three can create this type of pressure cooker.

“Sometimes what you see is those people who don't assert themselves is that they can explode,” Kress says. “They’re frustrated that people aren’t asking what they think or what they want.”

Plus, Atkinson says that these different imbalances can also occur when one person feels closer to another in the group, which can “inadvertently fuel jealousy and competition for attention or perceived ‘best friend’ status,” Atkinson says.

When fights do happen, they can ramp up in intensity quickly, says Atkinson. A disagreement between two people within the group “suddenly involves the third,” which can “unnecessarily escalate the conflict” by bringing “a whole other person's energy into it.”

The bottom line

Atkinson stresses that just because friend groups of three have unique challenges doesn’t mean they’re impossible to maintain healthily — but you have to “make a concerted effort” if you want to avoid the drama.

That means paying attention to how you’re communicating. Instead of triangulating when you have a conflict with a group member, it’s important to communicate directly. And while it’s normal for friendships to go through phases where people feel closer to one person than another, being mindful of giving everyone an equal voice in the friendship is also important. (That may mean heading to your furthest friend’s neighborhood for dinner occasionally!)

“If done well,” Atkinson says, “it can be really cool, and you can have so many different points of view, and know that everyone has your back and you have theirs.”