Three's company, two's a crowd

Ever heard of trinogamy? And no, I'm not talking about the branch of mathematics that deals with the relation between the sides and angles of plane or spherical triangles, and their calculations. That's trigonometry. trinogamy is when three people are in one relationship.

According to my research, it's a little like a ménage a trois, except when you wake up the next morning it's still going on, and the next morning, and the morning after that.

While your average ménage a trois is usually just a once-off lucky one-nighter that gives you bragging rights for the rest of your life, trinogamy is more of a committed relationship, very much like a marriage, but with three people in it instead of two. Forever and ever until death (or a pick-axe fuelled by jealousy) do you part.

Sound crazy? You haven't heard a third of it yet.

It could be a relationship between two guys and one girl, or two girls and one guy, or three guys, or three girls. I imagine that the wedding itself might get a little laborious though; do you, X, take Y, to be your lawful wedded spouse? I do. And do you, Z, take Y to be your lawful wedded spouse? I do. And do you, Y take X to be your lawful wedded spouse? I do ...

Yawn, pull up a chair, we might be here for a while.

I can't make a relationship with one guy work for a couple of months at a time, and here people are creating lifelong partnerships made up of whole polo teams.

Say if your trinogamy was made up of two guys and one girl, I'm guessing the remote-control issues would be out of control. And that poor woman would lose the toilet-seat-down argument forever.

Or if your trinogamy had two women and one dude, God help that man if he ever forgot to take out the dustbin or missed an anniversary. If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, can you imagine the kind of fury created by two women scorned? Vesuvius comes to mind. Run Forest, run.

I guess the upside to this kind of marriage, or should we call it triage, would be that, if there are three of you, at least one of you must feel like cooking every night and there's always someone to go out with if one wants to stay home to watch The Apprentice.

But more importantly, the cons: Isn't three always a crowd? At some point someone is always going to feel left out, or ganged up on. Also three people can't play Rock, Paper, Scissors, so how would the big family decisions ever be made?

The whole thing sounds incredibly complicated to me. Also, in my experience there's never enough duvet to go around for two people.

Imagine having to make it work with three in the bed? Holding hands would also be a problem. You can't really walk in a circle, so one person gets both hands held and the other two are on their own. Many rosters would need to be drawn up. I also wonder how they play backgammon?

And then there are the in-laws to consider. It's tricky enough in a "normal" relationship where there are two sets of in-laws. Your average trinogamous relationship has three mothers-in-law to contend with. Christmas and Mother's Day must be the two least looked-forward-to days on the calendar.

Four bank accounts (three single, one joint), three wedding rings, six in-laws, table for three, and figuring out who gets to sit in the middle at movies?

Come to think of it, perhaps it is quite a lot like trigonometry after all.