Laravel Many to many self referencing table only works one way

Question

I have set up the relationship and the models as below:

pivot table schema

Schema::create(\'friend_user\', function(Blueprint $table) {
    $table-&g         


        

Answer 1

use this

public function friends()
{
 return $this->belongsToMany('User', 'friend_user', 'user_id', 'friend_id')->orWhere('friend_id', $this->id);;
}

in this case you get one query and one record for each relation

Answer 2

Instead of creating two records use a new function.

public function friends()
{
  return $this->belongsToMany('User', 'friend_user', 'user_id', 'friend_id');
}

// Same table, self referencing, but change the key order
public function theFriends()
{
  return $this->belongsToMany('User', 'friend_user', 'friend_id', 'user_id');
}

//You can then call opposite record(s) using:
foreach( Auth::user()->theFriends as $theFriends )

I used this approach in my project so I can have better separation for organizing the results.