Plan B

Just in case Plan A doesn't work.

Being Backup Girl sucks.

For those uninitiated in the concept of backup girls (likely men), I will explain. Backup Girl is the girl to whom men pay attention only when there is no other girl around. In other words, she's the one that a man will call or date only when his preferred female isn't available.

Women are very familiar with this concept. Unless she's a Shiny Happy Beauty, chances are good that she's been a backup girl at one point or another, though she might not have called herself "Backup Girl" exactly. She might not have known it, she might have thought that he was just busy or inattentive, but she was a backup girl all the same. Being Backup Girl is particularly insidious when she doesn't know that she's the backup girl. And when a girl finds out that she is indeed the backup and not the primary, well, she can feel all kinds of stupid for not having known it. In addition, she has to wonder if she's been deliberately duped.

Oh, I don't think that some men deliberately deceive their backup girls. I don't think at all that they all do it intentionally. I just think that it is man's nature to have a backup plan (Plan B) just in case their preferred plan (Plan A) falls through. It's a good strategy, even if it does stink for the poor girl who has been suckered into being Plan B.