title: Laravel belongsToMany function
body: <p>I'm using Laravel to create a basic site with the following function: A user can follow certain topics. I have a 'users' table, a 'topics' table, and as a pivot table, I have a 'following' table.</p>
  
  <pre><code>users
  ----
  user_id (primary)
  user_first_name
  etc..
  
  
  following
  ---------
  follow_id
  user_id (foreign)
  topic_id (foreign)
  
  
  topics
  ------
  topic_id (primary)
  topic_name
  etc...
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm trying to create a page that displays all of the topics, but for the topics that the current user is following, I need to show an overlay on the box.</p>
  
  <p>I have a User Model with the following function:</p>
  
  <pre><code>public function follows() {
      return $this-&gt;belongsToMany('Topic', 'following', 'user_id', 'user_id');
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However, I'm not too sure where to go from here (or whether this is right!)</p>
  
  <p>Would be hugely grateful for any help.</p>