How To Star In Your Own Hot Love Triangle This Summer

Summer is the time for beaches, watermelons, and leaving work early on Fridays. Sadly, the season is already halfway over, so you need to make the most of the days you have left.

Take a lover, but while you’re at it, take two — summer days are long for a reason. Love triangles are what all your favorite TV characters are doing — everyone from Devi on Never Have I Ever to Megan and Isabella, the potential femme fatales of Cruel Summer, to Belly and her brother-lovers on The Summer I Turned Pretty. Nothing like sharing a lover with your best friend or running between two dates on the same night to unleash your truly wild vibes (also, the busier you are, the less time you have to wash your hair, which is the true meaning of feral girl summer). For tips on how to star in your own hot love triangle, I aggregated advice from these wise protagonists. So, read on:

Get hot. This is what Belly did, after all — it’s the title of the show. But then again, you’re already hot (I’ve always said that hot is a mindset), so I think you can move on to the next step.

Make sure both love interests are nearby. You don’t want to spend summer on a train commuting between different lovers — not when the weather is this good! So, keep them as close as possible. Ideally in the same house, like Megan and Isabella during that fateful foreign exchange year. Or at the very least, on the same small island.

Contrast, contrast, contrast. Summer is all about contrast — the sun is warm, but the water is cold. The watermelon is sweet, but the rind is sour, which is why you shouldn’t eat it. Anyway, you need a love triangle that captures this. So take a page out of Devi’s book and have one of your lovers be extremely hot (Paxton), and the other be funny (Ben). It’s hard to find a man with both these qualities, so this way, all your needs are met.

Embrace your youth. With sand between my toes, I feel like a child again, and I want that energy reflected in my love triangle. You can have it too, if you take Belly’s lead and pull a childhood friend into it. Nothing like making your parents proud, and then unproud, then proud again, to remind you of what it’s like to be a kid again.

Plan pool parties! They’re the perfect time to tan, wear the equivalent of underwear in public, or search through one member of the love triangle’s bag for evidence of foul play.

Play the long game. Summer should last as long as possible, so let the love triangle really drag. Belly knows how: Start with just one love interest, but then let the other one kiss you after realizing his brother isn’t an emotionally available lover. Anything to delay a return to school!

Make sure you hate one member of the love triangle. Like, really hate them. Like, maybe they’ve been your nemesis since you were 8. Like, you hate them more than Devi hates Ben Gross. That’s the whole point of love triangles, anyway: to be confused about your feelings. And in the summer, your friends have more time to listen to you complain, so take advantage.

Get your volleyball on. And keep subbing out different members of the love triangle until you win, like Belly does, under the guise of needing to “raise money for charity.” Summer is all about charity!

Share clothes with both of them. Summer is the time for all your cute outfits to get destroyed by sand, so you want to make sure you can borrow from one of your lovers, if you need to. Maybe it’s a shirt for their college interview, or maybe it’s a beach cover-up. That’s the benefit of a love triangle — twice as many people to steal clothes from.

Keep everyone guessing about which one you like for as long as possible. This gives your friends something to cling to. Maybe you’re sure you’ve always loved one, but as he gets distracted by family drama, you decide the other is more supportive. This is particularly compelling if the two of them are in the same family.

Focus on the future. Even if you don’t end up with one of the members of the love triangle (spoiler: you probably won’t), always push them to believe in themselves. For instance, maybe you can show them they want to become a teacher, and then — like Paxton — they’ll have summers off forever! Your influence lives on.

Star in a sex tape. If you’re in a secret love triangle, people might not even realize it’s you in the tape. Just like they didn’t know if it was Megan or Isabella, even though they look absolutely nothing alike. Just be sure to delete the video off your phone right after. Or take risks with it — during summer, you can’t get suspended from school anyway. You can, however, maybe get your scholarship to the University of Washington revoked. OK, be careful.

Take risks. Summer is the time for thrills! So ideally, have one member of your love triangle die, just like Luke. Plus, this helps resolve the drama and confusion without hurting anyone’s feelings.

Always wear sunscreen. This is just good advice regardless of your romantic status.