User can follow other users

Trying to understand ActiveRecord's Self Joins. The Rails Guides gave a fairly straightforward example, but didn't seem appropriate if you're referencing the same model more than twice. I then found a Railscast on Self-Referential-Association, which led me to the logic behind this implementation. The code seems messy, in my opinion, and something that was straightforward before seems gray to me now. I just need a break, and will revisit the concept later. Everything is working right now.