Yep, I have yet another problem

I have a database that has the following userid, frienduserid, friendusername in it (although friendusername probably doesn't really need to be there)
What happens is that a user (userid) can add another user as their friend.
So this means any user can add any other user to their friends list.
When a user clicks on the "add friend" link on my site the details are updated with the "new friend partnership". What I
am having problems with is that a user can add the samne friend as many times as they want, so what I need is that if a user alreday has a friendship then if they try to add another then it doesn't get added.
I've been messing aroudn tryign to get a JOIN working so it works correctly but I just can't seem to get the thing working
This is what I have it as at the moment (obviously wrong)
PHP Code:
$query = "SELECT * FROM friends LEFT JOIN `players` ON friends.frienduserid = players.userid WHERE friends.userid='$frienduserid2' AND friends.frienduserid='$friend2'";
$result = mysql_query($query) or die("Error: " . mysql_error());
if(mysql_num_rows($result) == 1){
echo("There is already a friendship request");
Can anyone help please (if I have made it clear enough anyway)?
Cheers
Wardy