Post from the Loft: Three’s a Crowd
Three isn’t always a crowd. Sometimes it’s just energy looking for balance.
We’ve all heard the expression three’s a crowd.
Well, it’s only a crowd because two people are competing for energy from one person.
Heather comes along and wants to be friends with Danielle, but Danielle already has a friend called Petra. The only way to have Danielle all to herself is to undermine Petra. A pattern of gaslighting takes hold. Petra gets fed up and bows out—see? Three’s a crowd.
The girls get older. One of them gets a boyfriend, and three’s a crowd again. Danielle has one of those attractive, upbeat personalities that people are drawn to like flies. She goes to college, makes friends easily, dates a few boys, makes the Dean’s List every semester. People look at her and think, Life seems pretty easy for that one.
Only it’s not as easy as it looks.
The boys really like her because she’s upbeat, she’s cute, she likes to party, and she’s funny. She’s not reckless or damaged. Far from it, in fact—she’s delightfully uncomplicated. But boys, you know? They want to hang onto a girl like that, and Danielle? She doesn’t want to be hung onto. So she breaks up with them one by one, never really knowing why things didn’t work out, never really examining it much.
She goes to a big city, does the career thing. She has a cool apartment. Drinks with colleagues after hours. Betsy becomes a good friend. Charlotte likes to tag along. Everyone wants some of that Danielle energy. It’s intoxicating. Exhilarating. She’s going places, they all say. She’s one of the eagles.
A big opportunity comes up at work. They’re all qualified, but Danielle has the energy. She gets the promotion easily. Charlotte hooks into her. She’ll get the next opportunity, if she plays her cards right. Betsy moves on—new city, new company, apartment with stunning views.
She’s got two neighbors—Petra and Cole on one side, Alicia on the other. Petra and Cole have been living together for a couple of years. They’re nice, super sweet, but standoffish. They’re sick of people drama, so they stick together mostly, spoiling their little dog, Tucker, and building up their savings account, dreaming of marriage and kids, eventual retirement and grandkids, the whole nine yards—if they can ever slow down enough to enjoy it.
Alicia, though, doesn’t really have time to date, let alone think of marriage. She works in a hospital, and her specialty is rare. In fact, she’s only one of two people who practices her particular medical specialty. It’s hard to get people in to do what she does because it’s hard—insanely hard. And depressing. And exhausting. She has a passion for it, but when she gets home all she wants to do is get cozy in pajamas and curl up in her window seat with a book. Forget about drinking and dating.
She likes Petra and Cole because they’re not demanding. Three’s not a crowd for Alicia. She doesn’t need any more from Petra than Petra has to give. She’ll do girl night with Petra and gladly send her back to Cole.
It’s not a crowd. It’s balance.
No one’s draining anyone. No one’s keeping score.
We call it chemistry when the atoms hold, drama when they repel.
But it’s just energy moving, looking for balance.
Sometimes three isn’t a crowd at all; it’s a constellation.
You just have to find the shape that doesn’t burn out the light.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that none of this is right or wrong.
It’s just dynamics. It’s energy. Or synergy.
It’s what works in this human dance we do—looking for validation, for love, for acceptance and joy.
It’s the static, mixing up the signals, and sometimes, if we can get present enough, we catch the signal that clears the static.
From the Loft — essays on connection, distance, and the quiet middle ground.
—AR
Ashley Rovira is the author of The Signal Between Us, a novel about the signals that break a father’s long silence long enough to reconnect him with his daughter — and with himself.
She writes about connection, distance, and the static between them from her creative home at Heavy Crown Press.