title: Laravel model: instance or relationship?
body: <p>I'm not a professional programmer,  so I don't know that I'm describing this very well. </p>
  
  <p>Eloquent relationships are established in the model, using syntax and functions such as <code>... - &gt;belongsTo..</code> etc. </p>
  
  <p>Behind these models,  are tables in my database. </p>
  
  <p>In my (laravel) application, I have a logged in user who needs certain information about other users.  At the end of the day,  they're all just users, persisting in the user's table. </p>
  
  <p>So when I use a relationship to another object, (e.g. car) all is good. When I try use a relationship to another user I get errors like <code>Cannot redeclare class App\Models\User.</code></p>
  
  <p>I think I'm misunderstanding something here. </p>
  
  <p>I get the feeling maybe I should be 'instantiating' another version of my User (as 'manager') ... But do I really need to? It's more of a lookup than anything else. I'm not sure I would even know how to do that. </p>
  
  <p>Some pointers please? </p>