These intimate relationships are inherently frightening for many, due to their fears of repeating past experiences or trauma. A couple can thrive or break due to their responses to these fears. These fears are manifested in our actions, desires, preferences, and behaviors. Our involvement with these factors in a romantic context forms a triangulation. A relationship between the variables and the two parties forms an emotional geometry that can be harmful or beneficial. This triangulation can be healthy and encourage developement, enabling couples to communicate and resolve conflict. Or this triangulation can be a detriment, preventing a couple from properly connecting or engaging.
I will explore the indirect romantic triangulation existing beneath the surface of the direct sexual triangulation depicted in the Clear Plastic Masks song "Behind the Blinds," released in 2016. I will utilize this analysis to display how triangulation can occur in an intimate relationship. I will also argue that each member of the couple can exhibit their own form of triangulation within the broader context of the relationship's triangulation.
Defining a love triangle is tricky, so a broad definition serves us best here. Love triangulation is simply our relations to our internal and external worlds, and how they factor into the health and balance of our intimate relations. Triangulation can involve relationships to friends, family, or co-workers. It can also involve hobbies, parental duty, professional obligations, and even ideology. This triangulation can even occur internally due to self-criticizing or self-adulation.
We tend to consider extramarital or romantic affairs when confronting this topic. This involvement of a third romantic party is referred to as direct triangulation. What is much less identifiable is how our interactions with our fears of intimacy can form a love triangle. This is known as indirect triangulation. How our emotions, desires, behaviors, and needs are approached and addressed in a romantic context, and how that complexity impacts the couple's interactions.
In the opening verse of the song we can easily identify that some sort of triangulation is at play in this relationship. We cannot yet identify whether it is direct or indirect, but one party is obviously allowing an external force to impact their involvement in the relationship:
"Well, the sun finds me hiding behind the blinds. Rolls me over like the change in tide. Though your memory will eclipse, eclipse the day, all that's left is your lipstick on the filter tip in the ashtray."
So, the woman in his life has left, and we can see that he feels unfulfilled due to her absence. The triangulation for the other party is evident here, but continue through the song and you will find that he is not without his own distractions to addressing intimate fears.
Before we can delve into his triangulation, we must further classify forms of triangulation. We have discussed direct and indirect, but indirect triangulation can be further categorized still. Here we turn to Dr. Alan Michael Karbelnig's piece The Geometry of Intimacy: Love Triangles and Couples Therapy. Dr. Karbelnig classifies two types of indirect triangles as defensive and discordant. His clearest definition of a defensive love triangle comes on page 74, "Defensive love triangles refer to excessive involvement with triangles in the serving of defending against dialogue between intimate partners."
Later, on page 76 Dr. Karbelnig elaborates on discordant triangles, "Couples who are too physiologically immature to engage in a mature form of romance, as manifest in their tendency to lack sufficient individuality to see the other party as a whole person, and those who are too psychologically injured to allow anyone to grow close to them."
With those definitions in mind, we move on to the second verse. Here we can see signs of defensive triangulation on behalf of the love interest, but also discordant triangulation on behalf of the artist.
"All the reasons you say you can't stay, make me wonder why I bother anyway. Well, I know it's not love, 'cause you do harder drugs. Maybe it's empty lust."
We can see that she has externalities pulling her away, all the reasons she can't stay. We also discover her drug use. This is layered. But, it can be surmised that these external forces serve as a mechanism to avoid intimate connection with our singer. A way to avoid confronting her intimate fears in the context of their relationship, and addressing his fears. She is engaging in defensive triangulation through her drug use and other involvements romantically, in turn avoiding her emotional needs, as well.
As mentioned before, our narrator also has his faults. He is identifiably discordant. He is wrapped up in his internal conflictions and fears regarding intimacy. Fears typically rooted in past traumatic and romantic experience. This internalization of emotions, his refusal to confront her behavior and his needs, and his fear based reactions prevent him from establishing intimate needs. He is too damaged to connect, and his relation to his emotional damage is a discordant triangle.
At the end of the song we get one last picture of this couple's situation. We get to see her defensive triangulation with various external forces, as well as his inability to confront the direct sexual triangle as a result of his discordant triangulation with internal factors.
"What are you thinking when you leave? So afraid of being seen. I'd say leave him, and we'll make things right. But I know where you go at night. Oh, I'm just one of many more. It's not last night anymore."
There is obviously the direct triangulation due to the woman's romantic interests. This closing piece, however, is much more telling of our narrator. He is internalizing his displeasure of knowing about the other man. He is internalizing his questions about her thoughts, motives, and emotions. He is struggling with an internal dilemma of confidence and worthiness. This is very discordant behavior, as he simply seems to be too scarred or scared to fight for her to stay.
Triangulation can be healthy, as it permits individuality and promotes emotional growth. It can also be extremely complex, manifesting not only in a broader manner in the relationship as a whole, but seperately for the romantically involved parties.
The artist paints his companion as engaging in a defensive triangulation, unwilling to commit or connect. He is painted as discordant, unable to effectively communicate his needs and desires, or even break off his involvement. The complex intimate relationship depicted by Clear Plastic Masks not only displays the differences between direct and indirect triangulation, but offer a beautiful display of the differences between discordant and defensive behaviors in love triangles. It shows very well how this romantic geometry can be layered for both parties, serving as a lesson in the importance of communication and understanding in our love lives.
