Database freakies

Hello i need some advice.
I have a table ‘tbl_model’ with an ‘id’ field.
now i need to make a references from this id to other id’s within the same table.
users will be able to make links to these other models in the same table. But they can only make links to items that are not linked yet.
Now here is the problem. These links should work in both ways. So if model1 links to model2 the user cannot make this link anymore. But also if model2 is linked to model1 the user shouldn’t be able to link model1 to model2.

I thought about making this:

tbl_model_combine
fields:
id, model1, model2.

But if i do this i will always have to check both fields for searching for existing links.
Does anybody have an idea how to do this more efficient because this seems to be to complicated for the purpose.

any help would be greatly appreciated…:party: