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Bisexual Love Triangle

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"Both loves are pure. Both loves are true. If you were I, who would you choose?"

Now I'm so confused
I don't know what to do
He loves me (He loves me)
He loves me not
She loves me (She loves me)
She loves me not
t.A.T.u., "Loves Me Not"

This is a subtrope of Love Triangle where the central character has two options of different sexes or genders. The conflict comes from having to choose between a same-sex and an opposite-sex relationship, as society still treats both very differently regardless of how the character themselves feels about it. Choosing the gay option might mean facing discrimination, while choosing the straight option might be seen as "settling" or "not actually bisexual". Historically, instances of this have ended very poorly for the same gender member—with gayngst being common, the same-gender love interest often giving up on their affections, and them almost always never being treated too seriously due to Incompatible Orientation. Newer works are more likely to make the triangle an actual choice by having the central character be outright bisexual or have feelings for both anyway.

This is common in coming-out-stories where the character is still figuring out their sexuality. It also often overlaps with Closet Key. As a result, there's no rule for the character to be any particular sexuality and it does not just apply to characters who are bisexual (although this is the most common version). It may be a gay or straight character who is "confused" about their sexuality or trying to figure themselves out. In this case, it will usually involve a Last Het Romance.

Stories which prominently feature a Gender Bender will often give the affected a pair of opposite sex love interests. These tend to implicitly or explicitly involve Trans Equals Gay, connecting a relationship with their former sex to identifying with their current one. Some combination If It's You, It's Okay and Jumping the Gender Barrier is typically involved. However, if a character is a casual Sex Shifter, such a mix of different loves could be considered with much less conflict.

Compare and contrast Everyone Is Bi, which is when bisexuality and the sexes and genders of potential love interests are portrayed as no big deal. Even then, though, due to the different expectations around homosexual vs. heterosexual couples, this trope may still apply.

But Not Too Bi might come into play when it comes to choosing a winner — the character may express interest in both of their love interests, but will get with the one whose sex/gender they have been dating more often, or the one the target audience considers more "acceptable" (for a long time in mainstream media this would be the straight option, but Queer Media might lean towards the same-sex option).

Please note that this trope does not include all Love Triangles where the central character happens to be bisexual. Relationships between the male and female love interests must have different connotations that affects the main character's decision (or lack thereof). Compare Betty and Veronica for another way to play a "safe vs. more dangerous" love triangle. Due to the gender dynamics inherent in the bisexual love triangle, this may also cross over with Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl, Male Might, Female Finesse, Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy, Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl, or Strong Girl, Smart Guy.

If this love triangle gets too dangerous, it may play into Depraved Homosexual, Psycho Lesbian, or Depraved Bisexual stereotypes, and may, under certain circumstances, fall completely into Psychotic Love Triangle.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • A comedic quadrangle happens briefly in the manga 50 x 50. Wataru and Shuuzou are two men who slept together, but are in denial about their attraction to one another, this leads them to meet the pair of Kiriko and Sayuri, two women whom they come to date, putting each men in the center of their own triangle, and later, it's revealed that the two women are in the same situation, having slept together, but in denial of their feelings, they start dating the two men.
  • In After School Nightmare, protagonist Mashiro was born intersex but identifies as male and is torn between the girly and androphobic Kureha and the cold and dominant Sou. This love triangle represents Mashiro's conflicting feelings about his gender—he is happy to date Kureha as it puts him in a masculine position, but is uncomfortable with his attraction to Sou because he worries that it's proof that he's 'really' a girl. (Somehow, the idea that he might just not be straight doesn't come up.)
  • Ayakashi Triangle: After Matsuri is turned into a girl and Suzu grows to love him anyway, they end up in a Two-Person Love Triangle when Matsuri is split into Opposite Sex Clones. To everyone's surprise, their Gender-Bender Friendship seems to make Suzu favor girl Matsuri. Boy Matsuri only starts to make pace when he pursues Suzu more actively thanks to being mind controlled so he'll give Suzu a fatal curse
  • The core of Blue Flag's drama centers around Taichi, who's torn between his feelings for the female Kuze and his old male friend Touma. While Taichi does eventually begin dating Kuze, Touma's love for him and the fallout of what happens when the rest of the school finds out he's gay causes him to reevaluate both relationships to worrying results. It doesn't help that Taichi is unconsciously attracted to Touma, and doesn't realize it until much later.
  • At the start of Boku Girl, Mizuki is in love with Yumeko, who loves his friend Takeru. Then Mizuki's sex transformation causes him and Takeru to develop feelings for each other. Which one Mizuki would rather end up with is intertwined with his conflict on whether he wants to be male again or embrace being a girl—to the point the last couple volumes have Mizuki constantly changing sex to be the opposite of whichever flusters him. Mizuki's choice of sex and romantic partner follows the First Law of Gender Bending and No Bisexuals: Despite Mizuki's expectations, Yumeko falls for him, whether he decides to identify as a boy or girl. However, Mizuki realizes he never really loved Yumeko, while being turned male again didn't diminish his love for Takeru. So Mizuki chooses to start dating him, as a girl.
  • A type-2 Love Triangle in this form is the premise of the manga Boku no Suki na Hito ga Suki na Hito. Male lead Sora has a crush on a younger girl named Miya, who has a crush on an older girl named Asahi, who has a crush on a mysterious boy she met years ago, which only Miya knows is Sora.
  • Cross Ange: Ange's primary love interest throughout the series is Tusk, a male, but female Hilda is also attracted to her. Lesbian relationships are common among the Norma in Arzenal because there's only women there, but seem to be discouraged in the rest of the world. The series ends on an implied Marry Them All note: Ange consummates her relationship with Tusk after their first escape from Embryo, then kisses Hilda during the start of the Grand Finale. They're shown running a cafe together in the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, but it's still ambiguous as to whether Ange invited Hilda into a polyamorous relationship with her and Tusk, or if Ange is just with Tusk and no one else.
  • Destiny of the Shrine Maiden: Himeko habors feelings for both her childhood friend Souma (male) and the Ojou Chikane (female). In the end, she chooses Chikane. Chikane and Himeko are destined to be together because they're a Reincarnation Romance anyway.
  • Hen: The second series is a bisexual Love Dodecahedron that focuses primarily on Chizuru Yoshida, a Maneater who starts the comic in a casual relationship with male rocker Hiroyuki, but then falls hard for her female classmate Azumi Yamada. A significant amount of drama comes from the fact that Chizuru has no idea how to act towards someone she has actual feelings for, resulting in some stalkerish behavior from her. Meanwhile Hiroyuki's feelings for her are stronger than the reverse. Azumi herself is also Ship Teased with their male classmate Ryuichi Kobayashi, who is trying to make a drama film with Chizuru and himself as the leads, which Chizuru tries to turn into a Queer Romance as an excuse to kiss Azumi. The first twenty chapters or so were adapted into the OVA Strange Love.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: We are shown that Yuuno, the male partner of the protagonist Nanoha, is in love with her, however Nanoha herself has a lot of Ship Tease with her rival Fate and according to the Word of God, the two end up being a couple.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury: Suletta is initially not romantically interested in either Guel or Miorine. Guel is engaged to Miorine who despises him for treating her as a prize to be won via Duels Decide Everything. Suletta intervening against Guel and then beating him in a duel unintentionally leads to her taking his place as future groom to Miorine despite her confusion at two women marrying. Guel proposes to Suletta after she beats him twice which she immediately rejects. Though Suletta and Miorine's relationship begins as fake cover to buy Miorine time to escape to Earth, the two girls grow to care for each other more and more. When Guel goes through enough growth to more clearly confess his feelings to Suletta, she appreciates the sentiment but says she wants to marry Miorine for real now. Unfortunately Miorine decides to drive Suletta away to free her from being manipulated and conspires with Guel so that he can retake the position of groom for political reasons despite that they both actually love Suletta instead. After Suletta becomes aware of the situation and she gains her own resolve to face her mother and sister, she seeks to have a heart-to-heart with Miorine. However, she is forced to duel Guel again. After she defeats him, he gives her back her Holder uniform, and he permanently stands out of the way as he allows Suletta and Miorine to reconcile and become reengaged. Suletta and Miorine end the series Happily Married.
  • Please Save My Earth: Combined with Reincarnation Romance- in their original incarnation, Issei and Alice were both female, and were both potential love interests for Jinpachi. Things become more complicated when Issei is reincarnated in a male body. Jinpachi is straight, but has lingering feelings for Issei anyway.
  • Revolutionary Girl Utena: Utena is torn between first Touga and then Akio (Touga's mentor and role model), both princely bastard types, and the demure and feminine Anthy. Touga/Akio both remind her of the prince she met a a child, but her relationship with them represents becoming a princess instead of the prince she aspires to be. In episodes where she submits to Touga/Akio, she undergoes temporary Chickification, going from a brash and confident tomboy to a demure and submissive girl. Whereas Utena's interest in Anthy is closely connected to her desire to become a prince and emulate the Knight in Shining Armor ideal.
  • The Rose of Versailles has a triangle with both Rosalie (female) and André (male) as the admirers to Lady Oscar (female). Both are forbidden romances — Rosalie because she's a woman, and André because he's a servant.
  • Rurouni Kenshin: During the Kyoto Arc, Big Bad Shishio Makoto is in a long-term relationship with Komagata Yumi, a former courtesan who fell in love with him. His Elite Mook Honjou Kamatari, a feminine-presenting gay man, is also hopelessly in love with him; the fact he knows Shishio will never return his feelings either romantically or platonically (competing with another of Shishio's Juppongatana, Seta Sojirou) is the source of a lot of Gayngst for him.
  • Senpai Is a Boy centers around a group of three friends—the protagonist Makoto, a boy who likes to crossdress and enjoys girly things; his underclassman Aoi, who is obsessed with him; and his childhood friend Ryuji, who has a crush on him. Chunks of the story are spent on one end of this triad pining—Makoto when he mistakes Aoi and Ryuji's bond as mutual crushes, Aoi when she realizes that Ryuji is in love with Makoto and doesn't want to get in the way, and Ryuji when he realizes that his feelings aren't truly going to be reciprocated the same way Makoto's will be for Aoi.
  • Seton Academy: Join the Pack!: Hitomi Hino is the Lust Object of male protagonist Jin Mazama, who believes that they are destined to be together simply because they are the last known humans in existence. While Hitomi shows signs of reciprocating Jin's feelings, she's also the object of affection for lesbian hyena-girl Yena Madaraba, whom it's implied she ends up with at the end of the series.

    Comic Books 
  • Carnage: Eddie Brock develops a crush on Manuela Calderon, one of the few survivors of Cletus Kasady's massacre of St. Estes'. While Manny initially shows signs of reciprocating, she ends up hooking up with Victoria Montesi at the end of the series.
  • DC Comics: Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy's relationship has primarily been this way since they met in Batman: The Animated Series (though DC kept it as subtexty as possible for years). Harley is head-over-heels for her boyfriend, the Joker. The Joker is extremely physically and emotionally abusive but Harley always goes back to him in the end. Ivy on the other hand has feelings for Harley and the two have a much more stable relationship, but Depending on the Writer Harley is either oblivious, knows of Ivy's feeling but ignores her, or has flings with Ivy when she and the Joker are separate. Starting with the New 52 reboot, DC revamped Ivy and Harley's relationship to be more obviously romantic and requited. They're either Friends with Benefits or a non-monogamous couple.
  • Eat the Rich (2021): Joey is torn between a posh, restrained, and Conditioned to Accept Horror life with her rich boyfriend Astor and a freer life with Astor's family's nanny Petal. In the end Petal and Joey get together and tear down Astor's family's society.
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Once Allan Quartemain get taken to a Fountain of Youth, he's effectively immortal, and lives with Mina (a vampire) and Orlando (an also-immortal Gender Shifter).

    Fan Works 
  • Essentially features in The Hunger Games fanfic "Loyalty", where Katniss is still forced to act as though she's in love with Peeta even though by the time she was forced to volunteer for the Games she's already in love with Peacekeeper Johanna Mason.
  • Naked Singularity: The titular romance novel has its heroine Evening Glimmer urged to choose between Prism Slash (male) and Uncommon (female). At one point Uncommon suggests that Evening Glimmer should choose her because of the joy only another mare can give her.
  • Total Drama Do Over: Pahkitew Do Over has Charlotte stuck between her overprotective (and eventually emotionally abusive) boyfriend Trent, and her best friend turned crush Mel. This concerns Trent as Mel is a Serial Homewrecker who he fears might betray Charlotte, despite Mel having made efforts to change during her friendship with Charlotte. Once she realizes Mel is attracted to her, she dumps Trent and pursues a secret relationship with Mel, which becomes public and persists to the end of the seasons.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Anna: Anna has a girlfriend, Maude, but at the same time she gets involved with both Alex and Leonard. This is complicated by the fact it's not entirely clear if she cares for Maude, or is just using her as part of her cover. In any case, she doesn't end up with any of them.
  • In Basic Instinct, Catherine is in a Psychotic Love Triangle with her female lover—and murderer—Roxy, but she is also deeply attracted to the more conventional, straitlaced protagonist Nick Curran, although her decision is between killing him (which Roxy seems to want) or corrupting him to kill someone for her, or both, and Nick himself is actually the protagonist, which means that he's mostly fighting Catherine's impulse to kill him courtesy of Roxy. The ending ultimately has her "choose" him after Roxy's death—and Catherine is not interested in monogamy anyway—but it remains ambiguous how long it's going to last. Will she kill him straight after they have sex? Has he briefly convinced her not to?
  • Boys on the Side: Robin gets torn between both her attraction towards the male bartender and her feelings towards her friend Jane.
  • Cassanova Was A Woman: Cassanova is married to Peter, and isn't sure whether their marriage will end or not at first. She's attracted to Lola, an out bisexual woman, but doesn't feel cheating on Peter would be right either as she still loves him. It doesn't last long, since she leaves him and pursues her feelings for Lola after deciding they just don't work together being married. Then after she starts dating Lola, it's soon revealed that Cassanova was dating Jose before for a couple months and never officially ended things. Lola is angry and hurt of course after discovering this, ending things with Cassanova.
  • Chloe: It starts off with Catherine hiring sex worker Chloe to seduce her flirtatious husband to see if he's being unfaithful, but Catherine later winds up torn between David (her longtime husband, whom she loves despite their marriage being en route to Dead Sparks) and the younger and more exciting Chloe. Turns twisted when it turns out that Chloe is Catherine's mentally unbalanced stalker. Following Chloe's death at the end, David and Catherine are implied to rekindle their marriage.
  • Colette: Colette starts seeing Georgie. Then, unbeknownst to her at first, her husband Willy starts seeing Georgie too. When she discovers this, Colette puts them all into her next novel, to Georgie's dismay.
  • Compulsion (2016): Sadie leaves her boyfriend Thierry, tired of their relationship, and begins seeing Francesca. Thierry though wants her back, following Sadie and arrives at the castle, but she rejects him. Francesca demands that Sadie kill Thierry as a ritual sacrifice, saying it's “him or us”.
  • Cut to the Chase: It turns out this got Izzy into huge trouble. First, she'd already been involved with the DA, her male boss, and also started seeing Nola Barnes, the witness against the Man, a violent crime boss. Nola was so violently jealous of this she beat up and kidnapped Izzy, then kept her as a captive so she'd never leave.
  • Daddy Issues: Jasmine Jones is drawn between quirky fashion designer Maya and her much older Sugar Daddy Simon - who is also Maya's father. When Maya and Simon find out they've been sleeping with the same woman, it's as Played for Horror as you would think.
  • The Disappearanceof Alice Creed: Danny has romantic relationships with both Alice and Vick. Alice is the Uptown Girl, Vick is a holdover from Danny's criminal past. But he actually chooses neither, because he's a sociopath who is implied to have zero real feelings for either of them. He kills Vick and leaves Alice to die out of spite when he could have just taken her with him.
  • Elena Undone: Elena is torn between her homophobic husband and Peyton, the woman she's fallen in love with. She eventually chooses Peyton, divorcing him.
  • Eloïse's Lover: It's left unclear if she actually loves him romantically (or, indeed, even likes men that way), but Àsia is initially dating Nathaniel but then becomes attracted to Eloïse and begins seeing her secretly too. It's left unresolved as all this makes Àsia anxious over her homophobic loved ones learning enough to kill herself before breaking up with Nathaniel as she'd told Eloïse she would.
  • French Twist: In spite of Marijo seducing her, Loli is torn between her and her husband Laurent.
  • Girls Like Magic: Maggie is engaged to Jacob at the beginning. Then after meeting lesbian Jamie she's attracted to her before too long. She ultimately chooses Jamie. This isn't surprising as from what Maggie says she's really not attracted to men anyway.
  • The Half of It: Ellie and Paul both have a crush on Aster (who's dating Trig); meanwhile Paul begins to fall for Ellie as well.
  • Happiest Season: Harper is a lesbian who is not out to her old-fashioned family, but has brought her girlfriend Abby home for the holidays (under the pretense of being her orphaned roommate). Harper's parents try to get her back with her high school boyfriend Connor, who represents Harper's closeted life in a small conservative town. This is juxtaposed against her relationship with Abby, whom she is hiding; Abby in turn represents Harper coming out and being true to herself around her family.
  • Higher Learning: Kristen eventually starts separate relationships with Wayne and Taryn who are unaware that Kristen is sleeping with both of them (assuming the latter was real, not just a fantasy anyway).
  • The Hollow Child: Emily, Sam's best friend, it turns out is attracted to her. She kisses Sam, who is surprised by this and seems unsure what to think. Later too Logan, a boy who becomes her friend, kisses Sam as well and she reacts the same way as with Emily. Sam doesn't choose either of them since she's busy pursuing the Hollow Ones (it isn't clear if she finds either attractive too) and both are murdered.
  • Jennifer's Body: Jennifer and Needy have always had an intense Pseudo-Romantic Friendship, which included bed sharing (and they make out at one point). Needy is also in a relationship with Chip and only shows attraction to other guys, such as Colin. While all the boys want Jennifer, her only really sincere romantic relationship is with Needy but the arc of the movie is ultimately about Needy realizing what a False Friend Jennifer is. Jennifer kills Chip (and Colin) because she wanted to take what Needy had, so ultimately, Needy killed Jennifer in revenge and to stop her from hurting anyone else. Nevertheless, she inherited some of Jennifer's powers and used them to avenge her at the end.
    Needy: I thought you only killed boys!
    Jennifer: I go both ways.
  • Kiss Me (2011): Mia is happily engaged to Tim at the beginning, then finds herself suddenly attracted to Frida, her soon to be sister-in-law. They kiss and then have sex, which makes her feel quite guilty. Mia agonizes about what to do. She eventually chooses Frida.
  • Love Is All You Need? (2016): Jude is initially dating Kelly and appears happy with her. Then she gets attracted to Ryan though, and eventually has sex with him. Kelly on finding this out tells others about it who viciously beat her (as this is a world where heterosexuality is widely condemned).
  • Love Is Not Perfect: Elena is torn between exciting Adriana who offers passion and stable Ettore, who'd provide more security. She eventually chooses Ettore.
  • Maggie & Annie: Annie is torn between her husband and Maggie, the lesbian whom she enters a secret affair with. They agree to a polyamorous relationship, but then Maggie is fatally injured by a drunk driver.
  • One interpretation of Mulholland Dr. is that the lesbian Diane is in Mad Love with the beautiful presumably bisexual Camilla, who broke up with her for Adam, the wealthy, successful, and sleazy film director. This led to a Psychotic Love Triangle and If I Can't Have You…, culminating in Diane hiring a hitman to kill Camilla. Unusually for the trope, it would then take place in the past, from the position of the losing party. However, in another twist to the usual trope, despite being in a relationship with a man, Camilla seems to have already replaced Diane with another woman. Maybe.
  • My Animal: Jonny is dating a man, but later becomes attracted to Heather, who's a lesbian. She finally has sex with Heather, but after seems torn about it, pushing Heather away. Heather kills Richard, after which she has to skip town as Jonny is left behind.
  • Naomi And Ely's No Kiss List: Naomi is dating Bruce 2 when he and her friend Eli fall for each other. This helps Bruce to realize that he's into men (or acknowledge it), and they break up amiably in the end.
  • A New York Christmas Wedding: Jenni is engaged to David, but then gets transported into a new timeline where she's with Gabby, whom she loved before him (and they're going to get married). She's torn between them for a time until she firmly decides on Gabby, having gotten reassured by seeing David in the new timeline with a wife and kids, so Jenni knows he'll still find love despite this.
  • In Nowhere, Dark is torn between wanting a more traditional, old-fashioned romance with his girlfriend Mel (their open relationship is anything but this, but that's what he yearns for) and his attraction to the mysterious twink Montgomery.
  • In Parking (1985), Orpheus wrestles with his feelings for Eurydice, his wife, and Calais, his stage manager, even getting a song about his heart swinging between the two of them.
  • Passages: Martin is Tomas' artistic and sensitive husband, Agathe is the bright new pretty young thing who makes Tomas feel 'alive'. Tomas flip-flops between the two of them throughout the film, eventually ending up with neither as they both become sick of his shit.
  • Plan B starts out with a more conventional love triangle with Laura dating Pablo but sleeping on the side with her ex Bruno, but evolves into this kind of triangle when Bruno decides to faux-seduce Pablo to break up him and Laura only for him and Pablo to develop real feelings for each other. Notably, Bruno and Pablo can both be considered to be at the center of a bisexual love triangle because each of them have to ultimately decide if they want to be with Laura or the other man.
  • Alluded to in the film version of RENT when Maureen storms out of her and Joanne's engagement party after an argument about a woman checking her out. Maureen's parents turn to Mark, asking him if he'll now get back together with her. While Mark is respectful of his ex's relationship, her parents are enforcing the love triangle to give Maureen a straight option (this is 1990, after all).
  • Saint Maud: A weird example - while still working for Amanda, it seems that Maud is attracted to Amanda, going so far as to spy on her and Carol having sex, and both Amanda and Carol repeatedly accuse Maud of being jealous. However, Maud definitely feels that Amanda is threatening her spiritual connection to God, which Maud repeatedly personifies as a man (including hearing His voice). She even goes so far as to repeatedly reassure God that she knows He's why she's there. So Maud is divided between Amanda and...God.
  • Sappho: Sappho and Phil are a happy married couple. However then Sappho is smitten by Helene, and she begins a relationship with her. She openly encourages Phil to be involved with Helene as well, and they have sex. In the end, Phil and Helene get together after Sappho kills herself.
  • She Hate Me: A growing one between Armstrong, Fatima, and Alex; despite what the title would have us believe, it's actually more of a subplot than the actual story. They all end up being together.
  • Show Me Love: Elin dates Johan, losing her virginity with him, and is attracted to boys generally. Then she falls for Agnes though, deciding on her over him in the finale.
  • Shiva Baby: Danielle is seeing her sugar daddy Max, but still finds her ex-girlfriend Maya enticing too. She and Max later end things. The final shot implies that she and Maya might get back together, since they're holding hands as they stare at each other smiling.
  • Sunday Bloody Sunday: The basis of the film's plot. Bob is involved with both Daniel and Alex (a woman) at the same time, which they tolerate.
  • Tromeo and Juliet: Tromeo's father Monty is black, while he's clearly white without any signs of being mixed race. It turns out Monty was just so naive he bought Tromeo as his biological son. Tromeo was just too dim to notice the disparity in Monty being black later. It turns out that his birth father is Capulet.
  • We Are the Night: Lena is in a love triangle with Louise, the centuries' old vampire who recently turned her, and Tom, a human police officer who is tracking Lena and eventually the other vampires (making it overlap with Muggle and Magical Love Triangle). Louise deliberately turned Lena to be a companion for her (which was how Louise herself was turned, with her sire later dying) and although Lena appreciates the glamorous new life she has as a vampire, she's also deeply unsettled by Louise's willingness to kill even innocent people (Louise also didn't consult Lena before turning her). Tom is comparatively much more moral and also cares for Lena even after learning she's a vampire but as Louise points out, unless Lena turns him she'll outlive him by centuries. Louise ends up kidnapping Tom and demands Lena tell her she loves her; Lena does but Louise knows it's a lie, prompting her to shoot Tom. Lena in turn kills her. The ending leaves things somewhat ambiguous, but it's implied Lena indeed turned Tom to save his life.
  • Young & Wild: Daniela is very attracted to both Tomás, her boyfriend, and Antonia, a woman who she works with. She fantasizes about having a threesome with them both, but this doesn't happen. Daniela does have sex with both separately though. She continues to see both while Tomás isn't aware of this. Daniela falls in love with both of them. The two inevitably realize what she's doing and both break up with her, so Daniela is left alone in tears.
  • Your Friends & Neighbors: Terri cheats on Jerry with Cheri, ultimately leaving him for Cheri, after she discovers that he has also been unfaithful.
  • In Yves Saint Laurent, Yves's lover Pierre seduces Yves's best friend Victoire because he's jealous of their closeness.
  • Zerophilia: Luke's girlfriend Michelle is his One True Love, but his female form ends up attracting the interest of Michelle's brother Max; Luke has no interest whatsoever in making this into A Family Affair, but does feel sufficiently attracted enough to Max to consider it to be Inconvenient Attraction. In actuality, Michelle and Max are the same person, and Michelle had wanted Luke to be more receptive to her as Max because she was trying to gauge whether Luke would be turned off by her also having a male form; it's only at the end of the movie when she realizes Luke was completely unaware of her identity and she'd forced him into a Two-Person Love Triangle, getting her to finally reveal the truth to him.

    Jokes 
  • There is an old Russian joke where three people are stranded on an uninhabited island; a prostitute, a gay man and a cadet. The cadet has a loaded gun. After some time, the prostitute whispers to the cadet "Hey, how about you shoot that gay, and we'll start living a normal sexual life?" Some time later, the gay guy whispers to the cadet "Hey, how about you shoot that tramp, and we'll start living a normal sexual life?". The cadet thought, shot them both, and started living a normal sexual life.

    Literature 
  • Carry On: Like many other YA Fantasy tropes in this book, this is played with. At first, it seems to be a typical love triangle, with The Hero Simon and The Rival Baz sharing an interest in Simon's girlfriend Agatha. However, by a quarter of the way into the book, it's revealed that Baz only flirts with Agatha to tease Simon, and is not only gay but in love with Simon, putting Simon at the center of the triangle. Downplayed in that while there are three participants, the triangle relationship seems to be mostly backstory, as, by the time the story starts, Agatha has lost interest in both men.
  • The Change Room: Eliza is married to Andrew, and loves him still although they have some issues, though nothing severe. However, when Eliza meets a beautiful younger woman, Shar, at the pool she grows very attracted to her. Soon they have an affair, which Eliza feels quite guilty about but is too satisfied by her passionate sex life with Shar to stop. Toward the end, she confesses, and it's left undecided if she'll choose Andrew, Shar, or both of them might work.
  • The Garden of Evening Mists: Tatsuji and Teruzen love each other, but Teruzen is married to Noriko. (It's left ambiguous if he's bisexual and genuinely attracted to Noriko, or if he's gay and married her because his family expected him to.) Tatsuji decides to break up with Teruzen. They get back together after Noriko's death.
  • In Gena/Finn, "straight" girl Finn, who is in her early twenties, realizes she may actually be bisexual after developing a deep Pseudo-Romantic Friendship with the lesbian teenager Gena over the Internet. However, Finn is already engaged to Charlie, a Nice Guy who financially supports her and helps her out of her post-college rut, but only wants to settle down. Gena, meanwhile, is a younger deconstruction of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, as a former child star with severe mental health issues, but who understands Finn's creative spirit and bonds with her over their favorite television show, for which they write fanfic together. Finn ditches Charlie for Gena after Gena has a psychotic break, openly admitting that she doesn't know if she has feelings for Gena, only that Gena "needs" her right now. Finn ultimately realizes that Gena needs a friend and emotional support, and so she gets back together with Charlie but Charlie makes room for Gena in their lives, and Finn and Charlie more or less act as Gena's parents.
  • The Homestuck Epilogues: In the "Candy" route, after a polyamorous relationship with the two falls flat, Dave is trapped between his safe marriage to Jade and his attraction to Karkat, the latter having left their family to become a revolutionary.
  • Inkmistress: Asra and Ina, two teenage girls, are lovers as the story begins. Ina then tells her she's engaged to a boy around their age in her village, which Asra's devastated by. This inspires her to help Ina obtain her manifest, which results in Garen's death along with all the other villagers accidentally, horrifying Asra. Even so, Asra hopes to get Ina back. It turns out that Ina never loved her or Garen though, and was only using them for her ends. Asra is bisexual as well, unusually, mentioning she had previous crushes on men before Ina. She starts to develop feelings for Hal over time, and begins a relationship with him.
  • Labyrinth Lost: Heroine Alex spends the entire book having to decide whether to be with her best friend Rishi or bad boy Nova, with it being a choice between a friend she's known for a long time or a passionate relationship. She eventually chooses Rishi, with Nova and her settling for just being friends.
  • The Neanderthal Parallax: Mary, Ponter, and Adikor. Partially subverted, in that all Neanderthals generally have two mates (a man-mate and woman-mate), but that Adikor wants Mary to follow the Neanderthal rules, and Mary wants Ponter to follow human rules. Eventually solved by Mary going bi (or at least in for Sitch Sexuality) and taking a Neanderthal woman-mate.
  • In Jeaniene Frost's Night Rebel series (a spin-off of her Night Huntress series), the protagonist Veritas is caught between vampire-sorcerer (and titular rebel) Ian and her longtime friend and occasional lover Xiu Chung. Things are fairly heavily weighted in Ian's favour, however, since he is the first person Veritas has ever confided her Secret Identity to since her Sire.
  • The One Who Eats Monsters: Ryn, the titular deity/monster, very quickly falls in love with Naomi Bradford, who for much of the novel is oblivious to Ryn's feelings and following a carefully-tailored heterosexual life-plan that Ryn unwittingly derails. When she becomes aware that Ryn is in love with her, Naomi attempts to convince herself she doesn't reciprocate her by going straight for bad-boy Patrick Dailey. It turns out he's trying to kill her, and she and Ryn end up as a couple after Ryn saves her from drowning.
  • Reign of the Seven Spellblades:
    • Among the Sword Roses, there's a triangle between Oliver Horn (male), Nanao Hibiya (female), Katie Aalto (female), and Pete Reston (AMAB Sex Shifter), as well as Oliver's underclassman Teresa Carste. Oliver and Nanao have pretty much been the novels' Official Couple since she fell in Love at First Punch with him volume one, but Katie has hopelessly crushed on him since the first book and Pete has at times started to act like a Tsundere towards Oliver since they learned he was a Reversi. Oliver's feelings towards Katie and Pete appear to be entirely platonic and he sees Teresa more like a baby sister than a possible romantic interest, and he and Nanao have a Relationship Upgrade in volume 10.
    • Tim Linton and Ophelia Salvadori co-founded the Campus Watch with current Student Council President Alvin Godfrey when they were younger, and both had crushes on him. Godfrey hasn't ever evinced romantic interest in anyone, including Tim and Ophelia, while Ophelia fell out with the rest of the Watch after giving in to her Sex Magic in their second year. For an additional wrinkle, non-binary asexual character Carlos Whitrow is Godfrey's best friend and took it upon themself to make Ophelia happy, having fallen in love with her years earlier.
    • Posthumous Character Chloe Halford had multiple pursuers while she attended Kimberly. Theodore McFarlane recalls having fought a duel with Edgar Groves over their relationships with her. Current Kimberly Headmistress Esmeralda, Chloe's underclassman, was also in love with her, and Chloe didn't tell her when she and Edgar became a couple, not wanting Emmy to think she didn't have a chance just because they were both women. Oliver Horn is Chloe's son with Edgar.
  • Seraphina: Seraphina Dombegh ends up in between the affectations of both Prince Lucian Kiggs and his cousin Princess Glisselda who are both head over heels in love with her. Kiggs is an example of Star-Crossed Lovers with Seraphina while the latter is her best friend who awakens feelings within her that she didn't know she had. Eventually it's implied in the companion novel that she ends up with both of them, with all three living a happy polyamorous relationship.
  • Shatter the Sky: Maren is in a committed relationship with her girlfriend Kaia at the start of the story. Then once Kaia gets taken captive, Maren immediately sets out to rescue her. In doing so, she meets and befriends a young man, Sev, with similar goals. Maren and he become attracted to each other though she feels guilty about this, still loving Kaia, rekindling their love when they reunite. She's told both are her heartmates by the Prophet of the Aurati, but dismisses it as a lie at first. Maren though continues having a bond with Sev. Kaia and her drift apart over time due to experience changing them, and Maren leaves her, ending up with Sev at the end.
  • Part of the The Supervillainy Saga with Gary, his wife Mandy, and his ex-girlfriend Cindy. Mandy is bisexual and still has feelings for her ex-girlfriend, the Black Witch, and Cindy is in love with Gary but actually has feelings for Mandy. Gary also has a past relationship with superheroine Ultragoddess, who is straight.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Atypical: In the first season, Casey seemed to be straight-up heterosexual, having sex with her boyfriend Evan. However, come the second season she started to question her sexuality with a girl, Izzie, whom she meets at her new school Clayton Prep. By the third season, she is torn apart by her attraction to both of them, but ultimately goes with Izzie over Evan — that isn't to say she didn't break down crying when she broke up with Evan.
  • Batwoman (2019)'s first season featured one of these between the main character, Kate Kane, her ex-girlfriend, Sophie Moore and Sophie's husband, Tyler, although unusually it wasn't Kate that had to choose between the two but Sophie. Tyler was a legitimate crime fighter, not to mention a more socially accepted love interest, whereas Kate was a Hot-Blooded vigilante and a woman. Sophie finally admits she's really a lesbian, ending her marriage with Tyler and choosing Batwoman (her ex-girlfriend).
  • Several in Black Mirror.
    • In "San Junipero", Kelly is in one with Yorkie and her husband, although her husband is dead. Kelly promised her husband that she would "move on" and not go to San Junipero, because their daughter died before she had the option. Yorkie, however, who has been lying paralyzed since she was a young adult, represents the possibilities of San Junipero and the new life it provides. Kelly eventually chooses Yorkie.
    • In "Striking Vipers", Danny is in one with his wife Theo and their old friend, Karl. While it's played straight for most of the episode — with Theo representing stable family life and Karl representing sexual fulfilment through online methods — it’s played with at the end. It turns out that Danny is only attracted to his male friend when he's playing as a woman. So he and Theo compromise, having sex the rest of the year, except for one day, where he has cyber-sex with his male friend as a woman.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: After Oz leaves Willow (and Sunnydale) to find a cure for his lycanthropy, Willow grows closer to her fellow witch Tara and finds they have a deep bond in magic. When Oz returns, seemingly cured, his anger at realizing Tara is falling for her brings his werewolf side back out. Deciding between a gentle, magical relationship with Tara and the possible danger Oz brings, Willow ultimately chooses Tara (and identifies as gay moving forward).
  • Carnival Row: Vignette was previously involved with Tourmaline, a female Faerie like her, but then married Philo. They get back together after she immigrates to the Burgue, and learns he isn't dead like she'd thought. They drift apart though and at the end of the series she gets married to Tourmaline.
  • Chasing Life: Brenna is initially torn between Kieran, her boyfriend, and Greer (a lesbian girl she's also into). She initially proposes dating them both. They don't go for this very long however, so Brenna chooses Greer.
  • Dark Desire: Zoe is briefly unsure whether she'd like to be with Darío or Karina, partly as she isn't sure about her sexual orientation. She soon chooses Karina though, accepting that she likes both.
  • Daughter From Another Mother:
    • The first season sets one up between Mariana and her exes, Pablo and Elena, neither of whom are over her and both of whom want her back. But then subverted—or at least downplayed—in that Mariana doesn't really seem that interested in either one. She wants them both in her life as friends, but she's not really interested in rekindling a relationship with either. They're both exes for a reason, after all. Mariana maintains her decision to Dump Them All and persuades Third Option Love Interests.
    • Two seasons later, Mariana finds herself in an entirely different bisexual love triangle, this time with Ana and Ferrán. Since Mariana's already in a relationship with Ferrán when Ana confesses her feelings, she stays with him. Ana waits until Mariana and Ferrán break up for unrelated reasons, then shoots her shot again.
  • Dickinson: Austin/Sue/Emily in season 1, and eventually Sam/Sue/Emily in season 2. Emily and Sue however end up as each other's true love though.
  • Don't Look Deeper: Aisha's boyfriend is Levi at the start of the series. However, after learning she's really an android Aisha drifts apart from him and grows attracted to Jenny. It turns out she'd dated Jenny in the past, but her memories of this were erased. She dumps Levi and then rekindles her relationship with Jenny after this.
  • In El embarcadero, Alejandra becomes interested in both Verónica (her late husband's secret lover) and Conrado (the police lieutenant investigating her husband's death), and spends the greater part of season two torn between them. Conrado is the more traditional choice, as a very masculine man who "feels like home" and has more traditional, monogamous views on romance, while Verónica represents Alejandra's departure from her former, rather conventional life, as a woman and a free spirit with a more bohemian lifestyle. When forced to choose, Alejandra ultimately chooses Verónica, though she would have been open to a polyamourous relationship if Conrado hadn't been too traditional to agree.
  • In Euphoria, trans girl Jules is pursued by Jerk Jock Nate (although she doesn't know it's him at first, thanks to the Internet), and her female best friend Rue. Since her transition, Jules feels the need to sleep with random men from the Internet to feel validated, which Nate (in his persona of "shyguy"), gives her. However, Jules didn't know that Nate was catfishing her because she had sex with his dad. Rue, meanwhile, genuinely and near-unquestioningly adores Jules, but also depends on her for her sobriety, which leads to Jules meeting Nate in person and being blackmailed by him. Nate's obsession represents Jules' desire to be comfortable with her gender and her need to keep her secrets, while Rue provides Jules with genuine love, but can also fall into being manipulative by needing Jules too much, so Jules feels suffocated by providing Rue with stability.
  • Flowers (2016): Amy is attracted to Abigail in Season 1, who's with George, though she also finds Amy attractive. Donald meanwhile also wants Abigail. She never ends up with either however.
  • In Glee, there is a brief love triangle between Kurt, Blaine, and Rachel. Blaine, who had previously thought he was gay, drunkenly kisses Rachel and thinks he might be bi. This love triangle is obviously important in Blaine working out his sexuality (still 100% gay). Kurt, who really likes Blaine, gives him a negative speech about how he can't like Rachel because bisexuality isn't real, sparking an argument between them.
  • Kalinda in The Good Wife slips into one of these with FBI agent Lana Delany and Carey Agos. As Kalinda Really Got Around, in a demonstration of All Gays are Promiscuous, the question is more about whether Kalinda can choose between them, or whether she's happy just to use both of them for information. Lana gets derailed at the end of Season 5, as she's seen being accused by her boss of leaking information, and that's the last we see of her. However, Kalinda doesn't end up with Carey either, after this—she has to skip town, so it's an Aborted Arc.
  • Gossip Girl (2021): Aki is attracted to both his girlfriend Audrey and Max. Audrey in turn also finds Max attractive. She tries to avoid making either choose by them hooking up with Max together.
  • Guilt:
    • Kaley was dating Roz and also had sex with Prince Theo at the same time.
    • Molly was also sleeping with Roz and Prince Theo, even becoming pregnant by him.
  • The Haunting of Bly Manor is about a metaphysical one. Dani is not bisexual—she's a closeted lesbian—but she is still holding onto her ex-fiance and childhood best friend, Eddie's, ghost because she blames herself for his death moments after she broke up with him due to realizing her sexuality. As she falls in love with Jamie at Bly, she has to learn to let go of Eddie for her future happiness.
  • Intergalactic: One develops with first Echo (a male space pirate) and later female thief Verona being into Ash (both kiss her). It appears resolved with Ash dating Verona, but then the latter goes on the lam when she's accused of being a mole in the crew.
  • Interview with the Vampire (2022): Lestat de Lioncourt is bisexual and he has both a husband-in-all-but-name, Louis de Pointe du Lac, and a mistress, Antoinette Brown. There's never any question of who he'd choose if he had to — he and Louis share a household, an adopted daughter, and plans for Eternal Love. But Lestat is restless and horny, and likes having Antoinette as a side chick for as long as he can get away with it. He's happy to keep both of them, so conflict arises between Louis and Antoinette because they're jealous of each other. Louis wants Lestat to kill Antoinette, while she hopes that Lestat will abandon Louis and go with her to another city. Lestat does neither because he only cares about his own selfish desires. In the Season 1 finale, Lestat decides to form his own Vampire's Harem by upgrading Antoinette (who is now a vampire) to his second wife and Louis has the dubious privilege of being his Gender-Inverted Top Wife. Antoinette is amenable to this new arrangement because she'll get to live with Lestat and become a member of his family, but this is an even worse hell for Louis, who is already tormented by Lestat's oppressive Domestic Abuse and is trapped in a Gilded Cage. Desperate to escape from Lestat's tyranny, Louis murders both his lover and Antoinette.
  • Killing Eve presents a psychotic version between Eve, an apparently straight married woman, who becomes obsessed with lesbian serial killer / assassin Villanelle. Eve's husband, Niko, is completely disgusted by the violence that Villanelle brings into their lives, and Eve's growing attraction to it, meaning that Eve has to choose between Villanelle and homicidal chaos or Nico and boring normality.
  • Lost Girl: Bo, a succubus fae, not only has strong feelings for Dyson, a male werewolf Fae, but for Lauren, a female human scientist working with the fae. Initially, Bo tries to keep her distance from Lauren, as she hasn't figured out how to fully control her drain-life-via-sex powers, and "feeds" off Dyson fairly regularly because fae have more life to give, so she can feed without killing him. As the series progresses and Bo learns to control her powers more (and various characters' dark secrets start coming out), the situation develops into a full-blown love triangle, with jealousy, betrayals, suspicion, and angst. In one memorable scene, Bo turns her love triangle into a riddle—a trick question one.
    Bo: She's brilliant. He's strong. Her life is little. His life is long. Both loves are pure. Both loves are true. If you were I, who would you choose? [...] Hey, I was kind of hoping that you could tell me 'cause as far as I know there is no answer.
  • In the Lifetime Movie of the Week "A Lover Scorned", a woman has an affair and she and her lover conspire to kill her husband. However, halfway through the movie, we learn that her lover is also having an affair with her husband and that they're conspiring to kill her.
  • Mrs. America (a show set in the 1970s) has real-life activist and lawyer Brenda Feigen, who is Happily Married to her fellow attorney Marc Fasteau. However, she has a liaison with a female photographer named Jules and starts questioning her sexuality. She later finds out she is pregnant by Marc, who thus represents her traditional family life, while Jules represents something unknown and exciting.
  • The Murders: This turns out to be the root of the rivalry between rappers Lil Rex and DB Kane. Lil Rex was publicly dating Ayanna, but he also had feelings for DB Kane. However, as both men were still in the closet fearing backlash to their careers, no one but the three of them knew. This worked for a while, until Lil Rex accidentally got Ayanna pregnant, and feeling he had to step up broke it off with Kane. Heartbroken and humiliated, Kane started a feud with Lil Rex. Following Lil Rex having a breakdown, Kane and Ayanna agreed that he needed both of them, and finally came out with the truth, deciding to see how polyamory worked for them.
  • The Newsreader: Dale Jennings falls head over heels for Helen Norville at the very beginning of the series after working on a story with her, and simultaneously finds out one of the news team cameramen, Tim Ahern — who is gay — has a crush on him. At first it seems unrequited, until Dale suddenly kisses him after they both survive a bombing. He's determined to stay with Helen, though, and at the start of Season 2 it seems like Tim is no longer in the picture, until he and Helen break up and Dale tries to hook up with him in a gay bar.
  • Nip/Tuck: Matt's high school girlfriend breaks it off with him after she comes out of the closet and starts dating another cheerleader from her team. When the other girl starts to have doubts, the girlfriend invites Matt to "get them going". This triangle ends with the other girl concluding that she'd rather date men and Matt's ex being left in the cold.
  • No Tomorrow: Kareema falls for Sofia, her brother Rohan's fiancee. At first this seems fine, since Sofia says their engagement is just for her to get citizenship. Then Rohan reveals to Kareema that he loves Sofia as well. It's resolved with her choosing Kareema, as Sofia is a lesbian.
  • Roswell, New Mexico: Between Michael, Alex, and Maria. Michael and Alex have a long complicated history, while Michael and Maria have a standing flirtation that starts to become more. Michael genuinely does love Alex, and as of the end of season 1, he chooses to be with Maria, because he feels Alex and him aren't good for each other and because of his growing feelings for Maria. This is further complicated by Maria and Alex being best friends and not wanting to hurt each other and Maria not having known about Alex and Michael's history for most of the first season. In Season 2, Michael and Maria date on and off and, at one point, have an emotionally fraught threesome with Alex, who also gets his own Satellite Love Interest. By the end of the season, the triangle is largely resolved: Michael and Maria break up and he expresses hope for him and Alex in the future.
  • The Shannara Chronicles: Eretria claims that there is one between her, Wil and Amberle as well, something both Wil and Amberle try to deny, while obviously pining for one another. Eretria meanwhile denies that what she feels for Wil is anything but lust, or that she actually cares what Amberle thinks of her, while she's flirting heavily with both.
  • The Sinner:
    • Season 1 has a very dark example. And an incestuous one. Cora was in love with her first boyfriend J.D., who represented a new "normal" life for her outside of her religious freaks abusive family. Her sick sister Phoebe loved Cora and lived through Cora's sex life because she couldn't have her own. This ended up with Cora and Phoebe having a pretty joyless sexual encounter when Cora was planning to abandon Phoebe and her home life.
    • Season 3. Although Jamie denies that his and Nick's relationship was explicitly sexual, they had a lot of Homoerotic Subtext which is why everyone keeps asking him. Jamie was divided between Nick and his wife Leela. Nick wanted him to kill Leela and others, and let in his inner "ubermench". Leela is heavily pregnant and just wants to settle down with him. Jamie left Nick to die, but the Psychotic Love Triangle didn't even end there as Jamie is still haunted by him and his mind games after his death.
  • Torchwood: Between Gwen, Jack and Ianto. Jack flirts with Gwen who admits to having a special kind of love for him. Jack ultimately ends up in a friends with benefits arrangement with Ianto, and then later asks him out a date/to go steady. Gwen chooses Rhys over Jack, her long term partner that provides her with a sense of stability and normalcy. And Jack and Ianto remain together until Ianto is killed off, causing Jack to leave the planet and tell Gwen that she isn't enough to get him to stay. In the fourth season, following Ianto's death, Gwen and Jack's complicated history is revisited. While ultimately they care deeply for each other, Gwen will always choose her family's well being first and Jack will always put the world first. Gwen remains with her husband while keeping Jack as a close friend. Both grieve Ianto's loss.
  • The Undeclared War: Saara is dating James and also lives with him when she meets Kathy Freeman at her new job, who she's attracted to. The two kiss and have sex, but afterward Kathy won't consider anything more until Saara's not with James any longer. Kathy leaves for the US, while James realizes what's happened and leaves Saara alone, devastated.

    Music 
  • "Great Acoustics" by The Kentucky Headhunters implies that the narrator's wife is cheating on him with another woman:
    Listen to the pouring rain
    It reminds me of a song you sang
    Does it tell you anything at all?
    The melodies are fading fast
    Telling me that love won't last
    Can you hear the sound as teardrops fall?
    The great acoustics in this room
    They done went and told on you
    They tell me of a girl somewhere
    With ruby lips and long blonde hair, uh-huh...
  • The Vocaloid song "Teenage Boys and Girls" by Satou is sung from the perspective of a girl who is struggling with being in love with another girl, but the second girl likes a boy who is in love with the singer. To complicate things further, the singer and the boy "have a messed up relationship", but she can't bring herself to hate him. The second girl meanwhile slowly starts resenting the singer for stealing the attention of her crush.

    Video Games 
  • In Dragon Age: Origins, certain player choices may result in the Warden developing this between certain companions depending on their gender. For a male Warden, they may end up in a love triangle between Morrigan (the opposite sex option) and Zevran (the same sex option). For a female Warden, they may end up having one between Alistair (the opposite sex option) and Leliana (the same sex option). Of course, the Warden will eventually have to decide which of the two companions they would have to romantically commit themselves to.
  • In Lake, this is present with Meredith's two potential love interests, Angie and Robert. Robert is a manly but sweet lumberjack and small town lifer who multiple townsfolk encourage Meredith to pursue romantically and whose happy romance ending involves Meredith settling down in her hometown. Angie, on the other hand, is a Los Angeles native and free spirit ahead of her time who is never acknowledged as a potential romantic partner for Meredith by anyone in town and whose happy romance ending involves Meredith setting off with her in an RV for parts unknown.
  • The Life Is Strange series gives each of its main protagonists at least one female and one male potential love interest apiece. The different genders are given their own weight and problems.
    • In the first game, Chloe is the first girl that Max has ever been attracted to, while Warren is Max's friend that she might like to have something with. At the end of the game Max has to decide if she will save Chloe at the cost of the rest of the town, Warren included.
    • The prequel Life Is Strange: Before the Storm focuses on Chloe's relationship with Rachel and her realisation that she's attracted to girls, but the player also has the option to explore her relationship with Eliot, a male friend to whom it's heavily implied she lost her virginity shortly before the game begins. It's actually Subverted in this case: Eliot turns out to be a Romantic False Lead and Stalker with a Crush who ends up threatening Chloe so alarmingly that she calls the police on him. It's unclear whether Chloe is bisexual or a lesbian, but her actual Love Triangle in the series places her between two female love interests: Max and Rachel.
    • The second game has Sean decide between expressing his attraction to either Cassidy, a young woman to whom he can lose his virginity; or Finn, with whom he can explore his newfound knowledge of being attracted to other boys. Notably, he shows his attraction to both of them in his journal before the episode even starts. If Sean leaves for Mexico without Daniel, then whoever he romances will join him.
    • Life Is Strange: True Colors has protagonist Alex form a relationship with either her late brother's best friend Ryan, or local radio host (and returning Ensemble Dark Horse) Steph Gingrich. Unlike the other protagonists in the series, Alex is shown to have been open and comfortable in her bisexuality before the game begins. Instead, what conflict there is in each relationship comes from their difficult emotions after the death of Gabe, Alex's brother who was a close friend of both Ryan and Steph; however, this entry has been praised for the relatively angst-free portrayal of romance (particularly Queer Romance) compared to the other games in the series.
  • It's possible to get into one of these in both Owlcat Games Pathfinder CRPGs. The source material is very LGBT-friendly.
    • Pathfinder: Kingmaker: Available love interests for PCs are Valerie (a straight female), Octavia and Regongar (a male-female bisexual pair in an open relationship), Tristian (a straight male), and Kanerah and Kalikke with the "Wild Cards" DLC (a pair of bisexual tiefling twins). Multiple outcomes are possible: for example, Octavia and Regongar may break up as a result of the PC romancing one of them, but it's also possible to pursue them both and make the Baron(ess) a permanent part of their existing relationship.
    • Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has two male-exclusive romance options (one being a gay man), one female-exclusive hetero romance, and four that are available to PCs of both sexes (including Queen Galfrey's Courtly Love route). It's possible to pursue polyamory for most of the game, but in the last chapter the romanced companions will tell the Commander to choose between them (Daeran, a pansexual male, is fine with sharing, but nobody else is).
  • Tatsuya from Persona 2 Innocent Sin is canonically bisexual and is in a triangle between Lisa, Maya and Jun, and a late part of the game makes you choose which to pursue (or none of them). Notably, Maya in Eternal Punishment doesn't get a same-gender option, able to choose only between Tatsuya, his older brother Katsuya, or neither.
  • Telltale's The Walking Dead: The Final Season sees protagonist Clementine attract the attentions of two of her new acquaintances: Louis and Violet. She can end up in a romantic relationship with either or neither of them depending on the player's direction, or can end up alone again, since her chosen love interest has the potential to become the final fatality of the series.

    Visual Novels 
  • In some Choices: Stories You Play stories, it is possible to have a bisexual love triangle in the following way: the story has to have two possible love interests, and your possible love interests have to be one of the same sex and the other of the opposite sex.
  • Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair has two rather spoileriffic examples. Momoko Mori was in love with her boyfriend Hiro Shiratake, but never realized that her best friend Kamen Eiga was in love with her. Meanwhile, Tako Kikai has a vaguely implied crush on protagonist Raiko Shinpuku, who doesn't fully notice his feelings. In the good ending, Kamen appears to have a crush on Raiko, setting up a possible love triangle for her.

    Web Animation 
  • RWBY: An increasingly violent and eventually non-mutual love triangle develops between Blake, Yang and Adam Taurus. Blake once was with Adam and supported his extremist ways at first, until it became apparent that he was only using the White Fang to fuel his own ego and need to spite those who wronged him. After entering Beacon academy for a new life she struck up a partnership and ever deepening relationship with Yang. When Adam found her again he realized that Yang was his romantic rival instantly. The conflicts between the three would only end with his death.

    Webcomics 
  • In Act 6 of Homestuck, both Jane (female) and Dirk (male) have romantic interest in Jake. Jane, and Jake himself at first assume that Jake is primarily interested in women, and as such wouldn't be receptive to Dirk's advances, but Jake comes around and acquiesces to Dirk. This establishes Jake as bisexual and really gets the comic's Everyone Is Bi theme going.
  • Ménage à 3 is basically a webcomic about a gigantic and tangled bisexual love polyhedron, though actual romantic love seems fairly rare. Notably, at the end, Zii seems torn between DiDi and Gary. In the end, Zii and DiDi hook up and Gary starts a long-term relationship with Peggy
  • Pixie Trix Comix is a spin-off of Ménage à 3 (see above) with a similar tendency to bisexual complexities. Notably, the sexually confused Aaron is taken with both Julian and Nikki.
  • Questionable Content: Elliot is romantically interested in both Clinton and Brun, which is complicated by the fact that Clinton considers himself straight but potentially receptive to the right guy, and that Elliot Cannot Spit It Out to either of them. Ultimately, Brun turns them both down, Clinton realizes he's attracted to Elliot, and they end up together.
  • Subverted heavily in Rain (2010). The first five chapters set up what appear to be a very simple love triangle between Rain, Maria, and Gavin. With Gavin being a potential Childhood Friend Romance, and Maria as a fan-favorite, supportive friend romance. That is until Chapter 7, where the triangle gets smashed into pieces.
  • Sandra on the Rocks, another spin-off of Ménage à 3 (see above), inherits its tendency to bisexual triangles, notably including the relationships between the title character Sandra, her boyfriend Pierre, and whichever woman is attracting Sandra during her latest bender, but especially Cammi. As a comedy bonus, at one point, Alex finds himself torn between Eloise and Eloise disguised as a guy.
  • Sticky Dilly Buns is yet another spin-off from Ménage à 3 (see above) that heavily exploits this trope. The main example would be Jerzy’s interest in both the male Dillon and genderfluid Angel.
  • Tina's Story: Colleen is torn between her current lover, Lydia and her ex, Sean. They end up as a threesome. Until Colleen and Lydia find out Sean was cheating on them both, at which point they kick Sean out and become a couple

    Western Animation 
  • Big Mouth does this with Jay twice after his bisexual awakening.
    • First, it's between his female pillow and the male couch cushion. He tries to spend equal time between them and force to choose which one he prefers. He realize he likes both of them but for different reasons.
    • In Season 5, he gets stuck in another love triangle between his ex-girlfriend Lola and his new mutual crush Matthew. Lola understands his messed-up upbringing and unhinged attitude, while Matthew is more neat and willing to ground Jay. Jay decides to go with Matthew, because he thinks Lola's crazy attitude just enables the worst in them both.
  • Harley Quinn: In the second season, Poison Ivy is torn between a thrilling life of crime and fun with her best friend Harley Quinn and a stable life with the bland but kind Kite Man. As Ivy explains it, she loves Harley but can't trust her, because Harley is flighty and impulsive and Ivy fears being left behind. On the other hand, Kite Man is trustworthy and stable. Harley wins. Kite Man is simply not compatible with what Ivy wants out of life and Harley slowly, but surely becomes more reliable.
  • Steven Universe: The flashback episodes focused around Greg Universe as a young twenty-something dating Rose Quartz depict a constant conflict between Pearl and Greg over Rose's affection, where the former is a big Clingy Jealous Girl who tries to chase Greg away so she can have Rose to herself. It is implied a major reason why Rose went for Greg over Pearl is because Greg was the first person to treat Rose like they were on the same level, while Pearl put Rose on a pedestal and idolized her. The usual gender connotations are reversed, as Rose and Pearl are aliens from a Non-Heteronormative Society, so Greg's inclusion is treated as more unusual for being an Interspecies Romance.

 
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Bisexual Polyamorous Mishap

Greta confides in Alucard about a disasterous relationship between herself, a man, and a woman.

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