Are you sure your friends association works?

has_many :friends, :through => :befriending_edges, :source => :user

The :through just follows the user association on the befriending_edge, pointing back to the user itself, no?

Users
id

Befriendings
initiator_id
recipient_id
Unique index on initiator_id, recipient_id

BefriendingEdges
user_id
befriending_id
Unique index on user_id, befriending_id

All graph information is accessed through associations on User. For example, accessing information about the relationship between User 1 and User 2 might look like this.

user1, user2 = User.find(1, 2)
user1.befriendings.find(:first, :conditions => { :recipient_id => user2.id })

In a system with strictly bi-directional befriending (if User A is friends with User B then User B is necessarily friends with User A) asking “Who are my friends?” can be an expensive operation for the reasons outlined above.

The BefriendingEdges are never addressed directly. That is, we never (or rarely) ask the question “What befriendings have I initiated?” or “What befriendings am I a participant in but was not the initiator?” However, despite the fact that we never ask these questions directly, modeling the graph edges separately allows for faster answers to the other more general questions.

All queries from the User through to either another User or to a Befriending use the BefriendingEdge as a through model. It’s not a belongs_to going through another belongs_to. Rather, it’s two has_manys throughs that utilize a common has_many.