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"  Because we&amp;#039;re all so very concerned that Katie Couric is destined to become a sad, lonely crone, an op-ed in the Huffington Post has advised Katie Coo and other successful &amp;quot;alpha&amp;quot; females to pick their men more wisely. Specifically, don&amp;#039;t go for the alpha males. Go for the betas. (One successful example of this theory, while Copeland doesn&amp;#039;t mention her, is Our Lady The All-Powerful Meryl Streep, who chose low-key sculptor Don Gummer as her own beta life-mate.) I guess now that Jennifer Aniston is squared away with Justin Theroux, we need another beautiful, smart, insanely-successful female millionaire to &amp;quot;worry about&amp;quot; just because she&amp;#039;s single. Otay. Writes dating coach Lisa Copeland: We are the president at work and we are used to being the president at home. And we don&amp;#039;t know how to turn that feeling off when it comes to men. We want equality in all areas of our lives. The problem is when we want an alpha male, we are threatening the ingrained role in men&amp;#039;s DNA from caveman days of needing to be the provider. Well. First off, by that heteronormative logic, Copeland&amp;#039;s not only contradicting herself about the very existence of the &amp;quot;beta male&amp;quot; (why would that be a thing if all male DNA is made of Slim Jims, barbeque sauce and hyper-masculinity?) but implying that female DNA is inherently not geared towards being the &amp;quot;provider.&amp;quot; Another point unacknowledged by Copeland is that Katie Coo\u2014while she did tell the press that after 15 years of the single life, she was seeking a long-term relationship that may lead to marriage\u2014is a widow. Her first husband, Jay Monahan, passed away of cancer in 1998. (And incidentally, before wedding Gummer, Meryl Streep&amp;#039;s long-time live-in boyfriend, the actor John Cazale, also passed away.) Surely these romantic tragedies in the lives of Copeland&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;alpha women&amp;quot; affect how they approach future relationships. It&amp;#039;s more complicated than simply picking a man who doesn&amp;#039;t block their shine. On the flip side, Copeland has a point about choosing a partner with a generally different dynamic than yours. Regardless of traditional gender roles, can any &amp;quot;alpha-on-alpha&amp;quot; relationship actually work? While there&amp;#039;s no You&amp;#039;ve Got Beta Male on the big screen, we&amp;#039;re used to seeing the alpha v. alpha dynamic in every crappy rom-com out there. Take The Ugly Truth, for example. She&amp;#039;s a Type-A executive! She&amp;#039;s smart and capable! She can&amp;#039;t land a man! Her hair is in a BUN! Until the romantic lead\u2014in this case, Gerard Butler, a chauvinist who patronizes her\u2014gets her to loosen up, have fun and, for gosh sake, take those glasses off! (It&amp;#039;s the She&amp;#039;s All That/Zooey Deschanel in The New Girl principle: Hollywood throws some glasses on a gorgeous woman, and all of a sudden we are expected to believe she&amp;#039;s Just A Nerd Who Wears Glasses. Whatever, man.)  Maybe Copeland is right that Katie Coo and her non-famous alpha female compatriots need to choose someone who&amp;#039;s less intense and more &amp;quot;lie in bed and watch Instant Netflix.&amp;quot; But personally, I don&amp;#039;t think it&amp;#039;s a gendered thing. Follow Anna on Twitter: @annabreslaw Photo via ABC/LOU ROCCO "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a12254/katie-couric-beta-male/>