The Little Pink Book: A Guide for Women

First, let me say what this is not. It isn't a female version of a man's "Black Book," and it isn't a manual for becoming a player. If that's what you came for, close this tab and search for something else. I've wanted to write this for a long time, and the moment finally arrived. You're probably wondering what the subject even is. It's about getting past being the pretty girl's sidekick at every social event.

I lived it. For years I was the third wheel, the sympathy plus-one at the table. It wore on me. Eventually I got low about how I looked, convinced myself I was unattractive, and then started second-guessing everything I'd built, wondering whether I'd traded a love life for a career. Whenever I spotted "my type" of man paired with a woman I privately judged to be beneath him, I couldn't make sense of it. Why would a good man want a needy one?

Then it clicked. Those men gravitate toward needy women because a needy woman keeps reinforcing his sense of strength and manhood. I know how bleak that reads. Don't let it flatten you into hopelessness, and don't accept the false choice between work and romance. You are not destined to be the plain one in your circle of single friends. Here is what I learned.

1. Upgrade yourself. There are times you simply have to raise your own standard. Never trade your reputation or sell your worth short just to pull someone's eyes your way. Decide what kind of woman you intend to be, and then pay attention to women who already carry that energy. You won't find a poised, polished woman getting drunk at the club and chatting up strangers. A sharp woman doesn't talk carelessly or go around in thrown-together clothes. Fix your wardrobe, keep yourself pulled together, and give people, both men and women, reason to speak well of you: "Every time I see her she looks professional and put together."

2. Build your own circle. Change what's around you. Keep company with people you look up to, people chasing the same goals and holding the same values. It might shrink your crowd down to two or three, but over time that pays. You'll also realize that the "good man" you watched with the wrong woman wasn't such a good man after all. The man who values what you bring isn't trolling the club for a refined partner in the first place.

3. Act like a wife now, not later. Don't wait until the ring to become that person, and don't suddenly rearrange yourself the minute you land a boyfriend. Be that woman before the title arrives. Everyone keeps a list of what they want in a partner. Once you've written yours, accept that no single person will check every box. Stay realistic, and turn the list on yourself: do you carry the same qualities you're demanding?

4. Be careful whose advice you take. It grates on me when single friends who've just paired off start playing expert. They're certain they know everything; they don't. In my mid-twenties my college classmates kept coaching me on how to catch a man, forever promising that "someone will come along." Nobody came. Now I understand it wasn't my season yet. Watching everyone couple up is maddening, but ask yourself whether they're actually happy. Put your energy into what genuinely matters to you, and above all stay independent. A grounded, accomplished, confident man has no appetite for a woman who's dependent and unkempt. And if a man carries himself that way toward you, run, he isn't yours to keep.

My mother said something that stuck. You will not meet a single man who doesn't already have some woman in the picture. He may not call her "his," but assume she exists. Single means unmarried, nothing more. Until it's official, you are an option. Handle it by flipping it: let him feel like the option, and let him be the one doing the chasing. Like I always say, let the best man win.

- Heather Browning, MBA, BA