 <p>I assume that you have the models <code>Show</code> and <code>User</code> connected by a <code>Following</code> model for the n:m relation.</p> <p>When you retrieve the shows, you can left join the Followings with a <code>user_id</code> of <code>current-user</code>. The result set will have the fields for Following set if there is such a following, and not if the user is not following. </p> <p>Note you need to <code>select</code> the fields from <code>Following</code> model explicitly, otherwise the join will only return fields from the <code>Show</code> model </p>