There are few things I relish more than a television love triangle. Dawson, Joey, and Pacey. Jack, Kate, and Sawyer. Felicity, Noel, and Ben. Snap, Crackle, and Pop. Three hearts attempting to ride a ferris wheel built for two, which is a poorly constructed ferris wheel if you ask me.

Historically, the gender dynamics of the love triangle have been two men competing for the affection of one woman. One guy is typically thoughtful, well-read, kind to a fault; while the other dude is more enigmatic, rakish, and has a propensity for brooding. Entering its second season, The CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend doesn’t adhere to the stuffy traditions of television yore. In this instance, it’s the female driving the action as she competes with, well… herself, for the affection of two men. Not only has the series crafted a fresh, innovative love triangle featuring their three attractive leads — Rachel Bloom (Rebecca), Vincent Rodriguez III (Josh), and Santino Fontana (Greg) — but it’s created the very best love triangle on television.

For the uninitiated, the exceptionally well-written series revolves around Rebecca Bunch, a woman who leaves her high-paying law firm in New York City for West Covina, California after a chance encounter with her old camp boyfriend (Josh Chan). Deviating from the norm, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend can best be described as a sexy, smart musical. It’s like Grease meets AP Chemistry meets a sitcom meets 1998 Cinemax at 2:00 a.m, which is the highest honor one can bestow upon a program.

Also, the series is unapologetically genuine when dealing with the complexities of romance.

Let’s CliffNotes the particulars of the triangle. Rebecca moved to West Covina to win the heart of her first love, the affable Josh Chan. Josh is/was in a relationship with his high school sweetheart Valencia. Josh’s best friend, surly yet intermittently sweet bartender Greg, develops romantic feelings for Rebecca. Sans the Josh and Greg combination, everyone in this triangle has boned. Big time.

The series rejects the well-trodden “will they/won’t they” trope for a new pristine “they will/and a whole lot” approach to love and dating. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend employs a pragmatic psychology of love to concoct a truthful peek at the infuriating realities of dating in 2016. There’s no scoundrel twiddling his evildoer mustache or knight in shining armor on his steed; there’s just the disheartening question single people are forced to ask themselves each day: Which of these options is less horrible?

Rebecca vacillates between Greg and Josh because all three characters are varying degrees of flawed, emotionally-stunted people, which is refreshingly honest. The series doesn’t draw within the lines of traditional character archetypes. These people make mistakes. They strive to be better but oftentimes fall short of that goal. Their good intentions more often than not lead to calamitous results.

Every variant of this triangle has been nasty to one another. Rebecca often treats Greg as an afterthought; Greg has been emotionally withholding to Rebecca; and despite the desperate pleas from the Backstreet Boys, Josh hasn’t quit playing games with Rebecca’s heart. And this, as anyone who’s ever put their heart in someone else’s hands knows, is the reality of modern romance. The only people who can truly hurt us — and I mean cut right to the core and skewer every single one of our insecurities — are the people we choose to let in. An acquaintance or first date could call me an “unadulterated trash person who looks like a poor man’s troll-version of Joshua Jackson” and I’d be like, “Hey, ya win some; you lose some.” Yet I turn to emotional rubble if an ex doesn’t respond to an email.

The lesson, as always, is that the heart is a stone-cold dummy.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is like a pop-culture psychology course on the irrational morass of turmoil known as your first love. There’s a world of difference between someone you just so happen to love and That Person You Love. When it comes to Josh Chan, Rebecca is dealing with a dangerous emotional cocktail of first love and rejection, and as we all know, rejection breeds obsession. No matter how irrational it may be, That Person You Love will always find a way to squirm their way into a deep dark crevice of your heart where they will remain — a constant reminder of a missed opportunity — until someone new comes along who’s willing to pay that emotional rent.

This is why it’s so difficult for Rebecca to truly move on from the idea of Josh Chan. At a certain point, the allure of a relationship with someone you once pined for so intensely can shift from genuine feelings of love to the idea of love you now associate with that person. It becomes less about actual affection and more about winning.

Real love triangles aren’t black and white. They’re irrationally complex entities that can make you feel like you’re walking on sunshine or lead you to a karaoke bar at 4:00 p.m. to repeatedly sing Peter Cetera’s “Glory of Love” before the owner offers you a $10 gift card to Foot Locker in exchange for leaving the premises. Rebecca Bloom and the writing staff understand that in the real world love is more nuanced; it don’t exist in certainty so much as it’s buoyed by doubt. Love triangles can be harrowing to experience in reality, but as Crazy Ex-Girlfriend proves each week, they can be an absolute delight to watch in fiction.

[Stream the first season of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on Netflix]